The Xavier Institute Neo
by Bra1n1ac
Summary: The lives and fates of the Xmen before they became the Xmen, reimagined into a new, fresh continuity with a more positive outlook.  Depression enthusiasts need not apply.
1. X Institute 1

Wait! Before you start reading!

Alright, this a project of mine I felt like doing, because I'm really more into DC at the moment for the following reason. Lately, Marvel Comics have been about one thing and one thing only. Watching bad things happen to good people. I don't believe that's what superheroes are for. Superheroes are there to inspire us and give us hope, not to show us that everyone suffers and we should all be depressed. For this reason, and because Marvel has many characters who, with little or no modification, could be truly great, I now present the Marvel Universe Neo; the Marvel Universe reinvented for those who, like myself, still read comic books in the way a child would; looking for something or someone totally awesome to look up to, or better yet, to look up AT.

Basically, the Neoverse, as I like to call it, is a different, ongoing marvel continuity, in which many things differ, while some remain the same. I will be messing with the ages, character traits, personalities, skills, histories, and even the powers of many of Marvel's finest characters in these stories, so if you're an original-continuity loyalist, you don't have to read, but I certainly hope you can keep an open enough mind to read this stuff. At first I was worried it wouldn't work out, but then, X-Men Evolution was fairly successful, and it did pretty much the exact same thing I'm doing here. This will be an ongoing series (at least one each month, like real comic books,) as will its counterpart; Tales from the Marvel Universe Neo. I'm not sure how long I'll keep doing these series. As long as I still enjoy it, I suppose. Anyways, I hope you enjoy Marvel Neo's first stories and will keep reading for more.

-Bra1n1ac-

* * *

The Xavier Institute Neo

Issue 1

* * *

"That's them right now." Professor Xavier said, looking out the window of his study to the driveway where the cars were letting off the students, "I want you to memorize their faces, Logan."

Logan clearly wasn't paying any more attention than he had to, however, so Xavier prompted him again.

"Logan."

"I saw 'em halfway up the drive, Chuck." Logan replied, "From this distance, I got their scents down too."

"Now, remember Logan." Charles Xavier said sternly, "You're not to tell the students your philosophies under any circumstances, and of course, you're not to raise a hand to them, much less a claw. This isn't an army camp. It's a school. Do anything to make it seem less like one, and I will truly force you off my property, and I don't care what things have been like in the past."

"I don't get you, Chuck." Logan replied, "You were never slow on the trigger during the war. How come you ain't teaching these kids what they need to survive?"

"Logan, the war is over, and we have peace now." the Professor replied, his chair wheeling him, by the stick on its armrest, closer to Logan's position, "Peace is something to be enjoyed..."

"But not taken for granted." Logan remarked disgustedly, "Chuck, these kids are going out into a war zone, whether you want to accept it or not, and unless you teach 'em what they need to know to hold their own in that war zone, they're gonna get real messed up."

"Why are you so determined to see wars where none exist, old friend?" Xavier asked, turning back to face the window as Logan stared long and hard at the back of his bald head.

"Because I know what life is like for a mutant outside this... this petting zoo you've built for yerself." Logan replied angrily, "Chuck, you know I ain't gonna trash yer dream about peace for everybody, but the fact of the matter is, there's lotsa mutants out there who want plenty of things more 'n peace. Humans too, come to think of it, but in humans you don't notice it so much, 'cause they ain't got the power to get those things. Tell me somethin', Chuck. If you wanted a supermodel, and you'd do anythin' to get her, you could, couldn't ya?"

"I would never do something like that." Charles Xavier replied icily.

"'Course not!" Logan said, still angry, "But there's lotsa guys out there who would. More who'd do anythin' for fame, or money, or power. You think humans'd hold 'emselves back if they could just use mutant powers to get what they want? I used to BE one of those guys, Chuck! Don't try to tell me everybody'll follow your dream, and it's all gonna go all nice. It don't work like that. These kids are gonna be part of a minority; people who still believe in doin' the right thing, and they're gonna have to fight to make it work."

"And how exactly does fighting prove that one can coexist peacefully with humans?" Xavier asked, raising an eyebrow at Logan.

"It ain't to prove a point, Chuck. If you get broken in two by some guy's weapon in a fight, it don't prove nothin', 'cept that he was strong and you weren't."

"Well, I am the one who makes the decisions here," Xavier replied with a heavy sigh, "and I believe that these children have been born into a more peaceful world than we were. They don't need to learn the hard life lessons you did Logan, and they certainly don't need to fight for their survival. Now, you will comply with my wishes."

"Yeah." Logan replied, still clearly upset, "It's the dumbest thing I ever heard, but yeah."

* * *

They were a relatively small group; only seven in all, and all of them between fourteen and eighteen, but one could tell just from looking at them that they weren't normal.

The first kid that caught Logan's attention was a boy with navy-blue skin, eyes that glowed gold, and long, pointed ears. Logan wasn't sure at first, until he turned around, but he also seemed to have a long tail with a point like an arrowhead on the end, and his hands and feet had a very odd number of fingers and toes. He only had three fingers on each hand and two toes on each foot; each one as thick as a sausage. He was visibly a mutant, unlike most of the others. He was wearing a red shirt with a collar, short sleeves, and long, brown pants that ended in dark socks that had clearly been specially designed to fit his feet, because they hugged his toes rather snugly.

The next of the group that seemed odd to Logan was another of the boys, closer to the front, and only because he was wearing sunglasses that looked like they were made out of rubies, and just might have been, Logan realized. He had dark, brown hair that was carefully, but abnormally combed, from the top down on all sides, as if he'd had to comb it without removing his glasses. He was dressed in a green athletic shirt and red shorts, leading to white sneakers, behind dull gray socks on his feet, and he had a watch on one wrist. He also had a rather stiff look in the parts of his face that Logan could see, as if he was carefully on his guard, even against the other students, in order to prepare himself for an attack. It was the sort of icy feeling that one might normally get from a war vet, or someone who's been picked on too often in their youth.

The third person who drew Logan's attention did so only after he'd finished evaluating the first two, and mostly because she'd chosen that moment to rise into the air, causing a gust a wind to wrinkle the clothes of those around her, and forcing the boy with the red sunglasses to push them further inward, onto his face, to keep them from flying off. The girl had dark brown skin, and bleach white hair, which was abnormal for someone her age, who wasn't accustomed to dying it, but there wasn't much about her blue eyes that seemed odd. She was dressed in a very short skirt, however, that was black, and a short-sleeved shirt of the same color, with boots that went almost up to her knees. Aside from that, she didn't seem to be wearing anything else, leaving her arms, legs, hands and neck quite visible, as well as parts of her stomach, but she acted as if she would have been happier to have nothing on. The reason she seemed to be flying was apparently that she thought it was fun. She was definitely having a good time, and even when she descended to join the other kids, Logan noticed that her feet never quite touched the ground.

After the flying girl, came another boy of noticeable height for his age. Not quite so tall as most adults, but definitely taller than Logan himself. Still, his well-toned muscle structure was the first thing Logan noticed about him. He'd definitely had some form of physical training in the past, whether it had been actual fight training or not. He had black hair that was slicked back, and was dressed in a green shirt, with tan pants and black sneakers.

After him, all the others just looked like plain, ordinary, human teenagers. There was one boy with brown hair and a smirk, who wore a light blue shirt and brown pants. There was a girl with short, dark hair that hung a couple inches below her ears, dark sunglasses, a pink, short-sleeved shirt, blue shorts, and brown boots, with a school bus-yellow overcoat. She seemed to be chewing on something. The last of the kids had hair like a fire engine, and she was, Logan noticed, quite beautiful. She was wearing a red polo shirt and a pair of typical brown pants, with black shoes on her feet, and she seemed to be looking around nervously.

"Just seven?" Logan asked as he and Charles Xavier headed for the doors of the Institute to welcome their new guests, "I thought ya said this was a school, Chuck."

"We're starting relatively small." Charles Xavier replied, "Many mutants and their guardians feel the Xavier Institute doesn't have a sufficient record of discretion yet to be worth the risk. I should also mention that the parent of one young mutant in particular is a noted professor herself, and has asked to be allowed to teach here for a semester, as she finds the idea thrilling, but wants to see it in action."

"...So she can figure out whether she wants her kid to come." Logan noted.

"No." the Professor replied, "She's already decided that she wants him to attend, but he's still too young for this sort of schooling."

In only a moment, the Professor pushed a button on the side of the main doors of the Institute, and they opened, revealing the seven students, all talking to one another as the cars that had driven them in noticed the professor's arrival, and began to pull away.

Charles Xavier was a very bald man of reasonable height, dressed in a full suit and jacket, however his height wasn't really noticeable, as he was seated in a wheelchair. Clearly, however, his torso and arms suffered no debilitating weakness, or lack of functionality in the way that his legs did, as he moved them readily when speaking to the students throughout the day. From what those present could tell, however, Xavier might not have had a single hair anywhere on him.

The man who stood next to him, however, gave a more intimidating impression, particularly to the girl with the sunglasses, whose name was Jubilation, as she'd had, or thought she'd had, some experience with his type before. He wasn't a very tall man, but he was very fit, and he was dressed, at the moment, in a white, short-sleeved shirt and black shoes and pants, the latter of which were very tight on him. He had lots of black hair that was almost as long as Jubilation's, but it was rather poorly-combed, if it had been combed recently at all. That man was Logan, and he had a gruff, cynical expression on his face most of the time, looking this way and that periodically as if expecting an attack.

"Welcome to the Xavier Institute." Charles Xavier began with a smile, "My name... excuse me... I said that..." EXCUSE ME!

That last exclamation was completely silent, but every student present heard it clearly in their minds, and suddenly, they were all paying attention.

"Thank you." Professor Xavier said, aloud that time, "As I was saying, welcome. My name is Charles Xavier, and as you can see, I, like yourselves, am a mutant. Now, I hope to get to know you all better in the days to come, but for the moment, there's orientation to get through, so that all of you will know your way around this school. I barely know my way around myself yet, but I'm sure we'll be able to figure things out together. Come in, please."

The professor quickly turned his wheelchair around, and followed on one side by Logan, proceeded back into the school. The kids seemed quite nervous at first, but followed slowly, with the white-haired young lady still never actually touching the ground, although she made a show of moving her legs, like the others.

* * *

For the next half hour or so, Xavier showed the group of students around the institute, which was clearly just an old mansion converted into a school. Many rooms that had obviously once been kitchens, or dining rooms, or rooms for special interests, like music or art, had been turned into classrooms, while many of the guest bedrooms had been used for something else. One guest room in particular had obviously just been intended as storage space before, and lights and insulation had been added only recently. Still, at the very least, there was enough room for everyone to live, learn and generally hang out when the need arose. The professor seemed to have run out of rooms past a certain point, and had garrisoned many of the mansion's recreational activities, couches and chairs in the open areas of the hallways, christening them "common areas," but it was more than anyone else there could have done with the place.

The impression was left upon the minds of many of the students that the professor was both a person of somewhat impressive wealth, and also budget-conscious in almost every detail.

"Now, there will be other staff members later on in the semester." the professor said as he lead them back towards a classroom near the center of the building, "and I'm certain there will be other students who'll wish to attend as well, at a later date, but for the moment, it's just the ten of us."

"Is Mister Logan a teacher?" The white-haired girl, whose name was Ororo, asked, still floating about an inch off the ground, as she had been the entire time.

"No." the professor replied in a hurry, "He's here for emergencies, which I don't expect to have. But if he gives anyone here any trouble, call out to me with your thoughts, and I'll speak with him about it."

Logan made a sound that sounded something like "Hmph" and looked away from the professor as he said that.

"You said ten." Scott; the boy in the red sunglasses remarked in some surprise, "Who's the tenth?"

"Professor Henry Mccoy." Xavier replied, "Like myself, Logan and all of you, he is a mutant, but I think that when you see him, you may be a bit... surprised. Try to maintain your composure around him, however. Regardless of appearances, he is among the wisest and gentlest souls I have ever known."

Xavier moved into the classroom, and looked back and forth for Professor Mccoy, but didn't see him at first. Then, suddenly, he heard Kurt (the navy-skinned boy with the pointed ears) exclaim "Himmel!" under his breath while looking directly up, followed by "So I am not the only one." in a heavy German accent.

All the students looked up as well, to see the large, broad-shouldered, blue-furred behemoth that was standing upside down on the ceiling of the classroom, reading from what appeared to be a textbook. It had long furry ears, that twitched slightly, as the students entered the classroom and looked at it, and it was dressed in a white lab coat, and long, thick blue pants. It had neither shoes nor socks on, however, but it was wearing a pair of reading glasses, which it removed with what was probably intended to be a friendly smile, as it turned to face the students, although its long, sharp fangs and dark claws, which bore a close resemblance to black guitar picks in both size and shape, made even the friendliest expressions look somewhat threatening. All of the students shook slightly, either in fear or in surprise as the blue-furred creature turned over in mid-air, releasing the ceiling with its feet, and fell to the floor with a crouching crash. Looking at it up close, the students could see it much better, and Bobby, in particular, felt very intimidated when he realized that each of its hands was bigger than his head.

"Students, this is Professor Mccoy." Xavier said, introducing them to the monstrous figure in the lab coat, that was casually tucking its reading glasses away in one of the coat's inner pockets as it spoke for the first time since they'd seen it.

"It's a pleasure to meet all of you. I'd offer you my hand to shake, but of course, most people find a handshake to be... unwelcome during their first meeting with me."

He said those things without seeming the least bit offended by their reaction to his appearance, but his assumption was, in that case, unfounded. Kurt had stepped forward, having removed his socks, and held out his own hand warmly to shake. As he saw that, Professor Mccoy smiled, and shook Kurt's hand with his own big, furry one.

"It is a pleasure to meet you sir." Kurt said, his smile never fading as he moved, barefoot, to stand behind Professor Mccoy.

"Well," Mccoy said, turning back to the other students, sure that Kurt had handed him a foothold into that group of kids, "Is my friend here alone, or does anyone else wish to shock me in the direction of a heart ailment?"

He said all those things in such a casual and carefree voice, that not one of the students could possibly have found his remarks offensive or derogatory, and in only a moment more, the tall kid with the slicked-back hair; Piotr stepped forward and shook Mccoy's hand with a stern expression on his face, then moved to take up a position next to Kurt, folding his arms as he did so.

From that, nearly all the other students decided to shake Mccoy's hand. In fact, it was only Jean; the girl with the bright red hair, who held back, but no one tried to convince her otherwise, and Mccoy didn't press the matter, stepping up to the front of the classroom and pulling a small television from under the desk there, then turning it on, although at first, there was nothing on the screen.

"Professor Mccoy will give you all a short briefing on the nature of mutant powers, then you can go unpack your things, and get acquainted." Xavier said, "I have some telephone calls to make, but I hope to see you all later on in the week during the 'mastery of mutant gifts' courses."

Then Xavier left the room with Logan following him closely, and Professor Mccoy began his lecture.

* * *

Most of the time, when a professor gives a lecture, students expect it to be boring, but Mccoy's lecture was kept interesting by the fact that much of the time, Mccoy would demonstrate what he was talking about in person, instead of just listing it. His announcement that mutants are born with special abilities or traits that non-mutants lack was kept low-key, since obviously, everyone present knew that, and his explanation of how the body of a mutant sometimes differs from that of a non-mutant was demonstrated when he held up both arms for the class to see the long, pointed nails on his fingers, a rather humorous gesture, since none of those present had stopped looking at his unusual physical traits since the lecture began. Of course, what was really interesting was when Mccoy explained the other type of mutant power, which he called "the extraforce power." According to Mccoy, just as human bodies generate biochemical energy that they often don't even need, so mutant bodies generate not only the same kind of energy, but energy of another sort, which he simplified by calling it "extraforce" or "X-Force" for short. Normally, that energy also did nothing, except being channeled back into the functions of the body, to make mutants tire less easily than non-mutants, but the energy also responded to the commands of their thoughts.

"Some mutants can use X-Force to perform unusual feats." Mccoy said, "In fact, I suspect many of you here can. Essentially, the mind of a mutant reaches out, either intentionally or in some cases, autonomicly; which means all the time, and forms a specific 'range' or 'territory' in which their X-Force can be used. For instance, if I tell my mind to form territories around my hands and feet, then channel my X-Force into those territories, the X-Force responds, changing the way my hands and feet react when they touch surfaces, like so..."

Mccoy then proceeded to walk freely and easily up the nearest wall, and reached sideways across the room, to flip a button on the television, showing a diagram of a human head projecting, by dotted lines, a circle into the air nearby. The circle was labeled "territory." Soon, the diagram changed; also showing the rest of the human body, which glowed in the chest area with a ball of light that said "X-Force" in the middle. Then, the diagram changed one more time, showing the X-Force as only a half circle, and the other half glowing in the dotted line circle, which read "mutant power." In each of those stages, Mccoy once again explained how mutants use energy to either project energy directly, to move existing energy and matter, or to change the way pre-existing matter works within their territory for a limited time, but the extent of those mutant powers was, he said, still limited by the amount of X-Force their bodies generated.

"But that's not the end of the story." Mccoy said, clicking the button on the television again, while still standing on the wall, which, the students found, made the lesson all the easier to listen to, "You see, X-Force isn't a simple battery inside you that'll run out over time. It reacts like a muscle, and if you come to a point where you can't use your mutant powers, or you begin to feel exhausted, it's probably just that your X-Force muscle is tired and needs rest, and like all muscles, if it's used regularly, and given sufficient rest at the proper times, and if you eat right, it'll grow stronger. That's the secret to strength, health and wellness in the body of a mutant, and in mutant powers."

With those words, Mccoy turned off the television, and resumed his place on the floor, saying, "Well, if you have any more questions, you can ask me anytime, of course, but I suspect many of you have other plans for the remainder of your day. The curriculum will be finished by this evening, so you'll all get a copy, and I can only hope you'll take it easy on me when classes begin."

He got a few chuckles from Bobby; the brown-haired boy in the blue, when he said that, and a couple of others, but most of the students were already on their way out, either waving good-bye to him or shaking his hand as they left.

* * *

By six in the evening, each student had found their room, and all the unpacking had been done. The Xavier Institute was a boarding school, which is to say, it offered students a place to live, while they attended, so unpacking, and in some cases, decorating had been a big thing. The school was, after all, going to be their home for the next several months, at least.

However, by six fifteen, many of the new students of the Xavier Institute had gathered in one of the "common areas." They'd exchanged greetings and names on the ride over, and during the tour, and so most of them felt somewhat more comfortable talking. Ororo was seated in mid-air, close to the ceiling, across from the other chairs in the room. Piotr and Jean were reading books, while Jubilation was seated on the couch, contemplating whether or not to turn on the television across the room. Kurt was perched on one of the nearby walls, deep in shadow, in imitation of the mutant power used by his new favorite teacher, and Scott was the last to arrive, seating himself in an armchair among the others.

"So what do you think of him, Kurt?" Scott asked the German boy who'd thought he'd been concealing himself near one of the corners of the ceiling, clinging to it barefoot as Mccoy had done, "Professor Xavier, I mean?"

"Oh! Scott..." Kurt said nervously, then for a few moments, he said nothing, but feeling he ought to respond, he eventually remarked, "Charles Xavier has my respect. I have no complaints about him. He has proven himself accepting of us... Logan is the one who worries me, but so long as it is Xavier I answer to, I see no real problems."

"Professor Xavier taught me how to control my powers." Scott admitted, "He made the glasses I'm wearing. Without them... I don't think I could ever be around people again. I guess I ought to trust him, but there's something about this school that, to me, doesn't seem... kosher."

"It is because it will go out of business soon." Piotr said, closing his book with a clap, "Xavier is cautious with his budget, but I do not believe he understands the risk of opening a school intended to admit people as naturally-reclusive as mutants. I do not know the size of his savings account, but it must be big indeed if he wishes to keep a school like this open on the meager tuition I gave him."

"He didn't ask me for a dime." Jubilation said, though she was looking more at the blank television screen than at the other students, "He might have worked out some deal with my dad, but I can't picture that lush giving him much."

This comment drew looks of concern from Jean, Ororo, and particularly Kurt. They weren't used to hearing someone talking that way about their own family.

"I don't think any of us could have given him a lot of money." Ororo said after a few moments, descending slowly from the ceiling to seat herself in mid-air near the others, "I like the idea of having greater control over my abilities, and I'm sure there are other things I can learn here too, but..." at that she paused, and trailed off.

"You don't think it'll last." Jean observed sadly, "I'd like to think it could. I mean, like you said, there's lots to discover here, but do you think Xavier can keep this thing going?"

"Doubt it." Jubilation replied.

"Hey guys! Whatcha talkin' about?" Bobby asked, the last to arrive.

"Nothin.'" Jubilation responded, snapping her sunglasses down over her eyes, even though it was already very dark in the room.

"Xavier loves peace." Piotr said, his expression hardening, "That is a bad omen."

"To love peace is no crime, Piotr." Kurt replied.

"No, but to be unprepared when war comes is." Piotr remarked sternly, "Xavier suspects nothing, because he hopes that nothing will disrupt this world he has built, but it cannot last."

Scott seemed to be thinking about that for a few moments, but eventually just scratched his head and stood up.

"Where are you going, Scott?" Jean asked.

"The gym." Scott replied, "I'm starting to feel half dead."

The others had no idea what he meant by that, however. After all, when one is extremely tired, doesn't it merit rest?

As for Bobby, over half of what had been said, even when he'd been there had gone right over his head.

* * *

There was no real cook in the Xavier Institute, although Mccoy seemed to have some skill at it, and had prepared a few dishes beforehand, which he'd left in the refrigerator to be reheated when need be, so most of the new students took some of that, It was good stuff, too. Some chicken, some fish, a few hamburgers and so forth. Only Scott hadn't agreed to have any, and only because he hadn't left the gym all evening.

Most of the kids had paid little attention to that, and Bobby had cracked a lame joke about how maybe, Scott's mutant trait was that he could only sleep in gyms, but Jean felt compelled to head down to the gym herself, and investigate the matter.

The "gym" was a fairly large room with all manner of exercise equipment inside. Gymnastic mats, metal and padded bars hanging from the walls and ceiling, punching bags of a very sturdy-looking type, weight sets that were close to some other advanced training equipment of a sort that Jean had never seen before, but which didn't look dangerous, and the edge of the gym was marked with distance lines like a track.

When Jean arrived at the gym, Scott wasn't using any of the equipment in the middle of the room. He was just running repeatedly around the track, and it was a strange sight for Jean, because she'd never seen anybody Scott's age run so fast for such a long time. After five minutes, then ten of that, Scott finally began, gradually, to slow down, and moved into the center of the room, towards the punching bags, then did something Jean had never expected to see.

As she watched Scott approach the punching bags, one of his legs darted out, slamming against the punching bag, then returning to the ground in under half a second, and then, from their places at his sides, his arms shot forward, delivering a volley of punches to the bag that Jean couldn't even keep track of. Jabs, crosses, and backhands were all in there, accompanied seamlessly by more kicks at regular intervals, but Jean couldn't keep track of them all, much less try to determine what kind of pattern he was using in his attack upon the stuffed bag. At last, in one swift motion, Scott leapt into the air, and swung backwards with his left leg, striking the punching bag across its front, causing it to twist all the way around in at least six turns on its rope, maybe seven. Then Scott was on the ground again, and Jean had never, at any point in that one day that they'd known each other, seen him with such a bright, happy smile on his face. It was among the oddest things Jean had ever seen. She'd been to gyms in the past, but the people there always seemed either upset, down, or at best, marginally pleased to be accomplishing something. Not Scott. He was enjoying himself. She could see it in his face. Scott was a very different sort of person than anyone else she'd known when it came to exercise and workouts.

Without even saying a word, or revealing her presence to him, Jean left the gym area to return to her room, filing away those new facts inside her mind. She had a chapter in a book that she wanted to finish, but Scott was, to her, both strange and mysterious in a way that none of the others really were, so she had a feeling that just like he had that day, he'd soon find other ways to capture her attention.

* * *

It was just past nine thirty, and Piotr was picking up books in the library, flipping through them, then putting them back where they belonged, his frown growing ever deeper as he did so. In fact, he was already considering leaving the Xavier Institute, but not because he expected it to close soon, as he'd said. It was more that he wasn't sure it had anything to offer him. Unlike Kurt, Piotr had no difficulties accepting Logan, or indeed, wanting to learn from him. Logan's gruff, ill-tempered attitude signified, to Piotr, someone who'd been scarred in his past by wars and violence, and that was just the sort of person he most wanted to speak with, particularly since none of the books he was searching through seemed to have anything pertaining to the martial arts in them.

Then, however, Piotr heard the sound of footsteps from the hallway that the Institute's library bordered, and putting away the book he'd been flipping through, went to see who it was. However, Piotr could not have received a less satisfactory answer to that question when he stepped into the hallway to look at the owner of the strong, yet delicate footfalls.

Piotr had never seen the girl before in his life.

She was a bit younger than him, but only by about a year or two. In short, she was in the right age range to be a student, and although it didn't really register to Piotr at the time, she was actually quite beautiful. She was dressed largely in red; deep red pants and a red shirt with bare arms, and on her wrist was a black watch. She also wore brown gloves on her hands, and brown, women's boots on her feet, the tops of which ran up into the legs of her pants. Her hair, however, seemed a little odd, as it was mostly brown, but with a white streak through the front.

"Who are you?" Piotr asked, suspiciously at first, but then a bit more relaxed, "Have you come to apply to the Institute?"

"Nawt exactly." the girl replied with a thick southern drawl in her voice, "Ah'm heah for the professah."

"Xavier?" Piotr asked, "What do you want with him?"

The girl didn't really reply. Instead she just shot Piotr a sinister smile, and small, blue sparks seemed to fly sideways from both of her eyes as she did so.

"It's a pahty in here." she said at last, "Ah was hoping he'd join..."

Piotr wasn't sure what exactly she meant by that, but he suspected the woman was drunk, so immediately, he summoned forth his X-Force, and formed his mutant territory, which surrounded his body, changing its composition in an instant. Suddenly, he was six inches taller than he'd been before, and looked as if he were made entirely of living metal.

"I suggest you stay right there." Piotr said, "I do not wish to hurt you."

"Don't worry. You won't." the girl simply said as she walked further down the hallway in Piotr's direction.

Piotr frowned when he saw that. Whoever that girl was, she had no idea what she was getting herself into. In his metal form, his strength and endurance were increased several fold, and he was capable of crushing most motor vehicles with his bare hands. If he had to, he would grab her and hold her until he could get the attention of one of the teachers, or even knock her out, but as much as his recent experiences had hardened his heart in some areas, he still disliked the idea of hitting a woman, so he gave her another warning.

"I warn you; stay back, or I will be forced to attack!"

"Whatevah floats your battleship." the girl replied as she continued getting closer. At last, Piotr felt he had no choice, and stepped into the girl's path.

"Honey..." she said, hesitating for a moment in her continual forward momentum, "Y'all wanna step aside?"

"Nyet." Piotr replied, "You will stay where..."

"Bang." the girl said enthusiastically, and faster than Piotr could keep track of, her right fist shot out, driving into his midsection, and the rest was a blur. He was sure that wood, brick and metal were twisting around him, and that he was moving with incredible speed through the air. He was also sure that his feet had left the ground completely, and that his stomach was in intense pain, but all his other senses delivered was a blur of rapid sounds and colors, as he crashed through barrier after barrier, unable to determine where he was, or where he would eventually stop.

* * *

Scott had finished his workout at close to eight o'clock, and taken a thorough shower after that, then spent a little time reading, and shortly after that, had remembered that he hadn't had dinner, and went to the kitchen to get something, but just as he was closing the kitchen door with a sandwich in one hand and a book in the other, he heard a tremendous, prolonged noise of crashing and banging, and large, heavy things collapsing, caving in, and generally being destroyed. At once, Scott rushed out into the hallway, to find a boy made of metal lying on the floor in a heap, with rubble all over him. His chest seemed to have partly caved in, and although Scott was afraid at first, as he looked closer, he could tell who the metal boy was.

"Piotr?" Scott asked, pronouncing the Russian name flawlessly, "Is that you? What happened to you?"

"A...a woman, Scott!" Piotr exclaimed as Ororo and Kurt appeared as well, Ororo flying to his location through a nearby doorway, and gasping in shock at the sight of him; so different than he'd been when they'd first met, and injured to boot, and Kurt appearing in a cloud of black smoke that released a foul scent into the air for a moment. He didn't gasp, but it was plain that he was just as shocked.

"She's after Xavier!" Piotr exclaimed, "Don't let her get Xavi..."

Then Piotr lost consciousness from the pain.

Scott frowned in grim determination as he turned to face Ororo and Kurt, then said, "I'm going to the professor's room. Kurt, you find Mccoy. Piotr needs a doctor. Ororo, see what you can do to slow this... woman down."

Ororo dared another glance at Piotr's bent chest, which did little for her self-esteem, but she nodded slowly and flew forward, back through the holes that Piotr's body had made in the mansion's walls on its trip through the air...

* * *

Pretty much everyone in the Institute had been woken by the crashing noises, but not everyone went running to see what it was. Xavier, for one thing, had no means of running, regardless of the situation, although he did begin searching the mansion with his mind to try to find the cause of the noise, and as soon as he touched Kurt and Ororo's minds, and realized what was happening, he slid himself forward off his bed, and into his chair. There wasn't, Charles Xavier suspected, much he could do physically, but if that mysterious girl was even still around, she'd found some way of shielding herself from his psychic probes, and that meant that if he wanted to know what was going on, he had to see her for himself.

There was, however, another who didn't even bother to head in Piotr's direction, and that was Logan. The moment he woke up, he started to pick up some strange scents. One scent in the mansion's second floor was new, but Xavier and the students were converging on it. There were others, though. One new scent was outside the mansion, and another inside that he wasn't familiar with, in the professor's study...

His long-subdued battle instincts kicking back into full gear, Logan flung open the door to his room and headed down to the Professor's study, aware that he was being watched, but he didn't really have time to care, so long as the eyes watching him belonged to one of the students...

* * *

Ororo hadn't had a difficult time finding the intruder, who'd headed almost directly towards the Professor's room, somehow knowing her way around the institute with ease. Ororo intercepted her about halfway there, and hung in mid-air in front of her, causing both to stop where they were.

"Y'all want an autograph or something?" the intruder asked jokingly, but Ororo didn't smile.

"I don't care who you are or what powers you have..." Ororo said angrily, "You are going to move, right now!"

With that, Ororo drew forth her X-Force, and channeled it into her territory; the entire atmosphere of planet Earth, though the changes she chose to make were in a very specific section of that territory.

The wind in the room kicked up, whipping the loose-fitting pants of the intruder around as the driving winds became visible suddenly, due to the air in that room being displaced with such incredible speed. In only a moment, tornadoes the size of watermelons had formed over Ororo's hands, but that didn't seem to frighten the intruder. On the contrary, she smiled.

"Wind expert..." she muttered, "Thanks, but no thanks. Ah got more than enough of that already."

Then, the mysterious intruder blinked, and suddenly, Ororo lost her balance, and fell to the floor; the winds she'd called up to use as weapons, and even to keep her in the air vanishing in an instant, and no matter how much of her X-Force she poured into the task of getting them back, the winds remained frozen, as the intruder stepped over to the door to the professor's room, raised one hand, and...

* * *

Logan heard the thunderclap as he snuck into the professor's study, but it made no difference in what he was trying to do. He was tracking a very different intruder, and although he had some difficulty seeing the man, partly because of the darkness, partly because he was dressed all in a skintight black fabric, complete with a mask that covered his entire face, he could smell him, and followed the scent carefully, staying behind him so that he himself wouldn't be noticed. Logan made no sound, casting no distracting shadows into the man's field of vision, until at last, he was directly behind the intruder. The man was at the computer terminal on the professor's desk, uploading something to a disc, which he carefully slid into a pocket on his outfit, then without turning around, spoke.

"That was very clever of you. I admit, I'm surprised. I didn't expect, in a school like this one, to find a master of the martial arts such as yourself."

Slowly, the man in the black turned to face Logan, who was clearly quite surprised and disappointed that the black-clad man had been able to detect him.

"Of course, just because it's a surprise doesn't mean I'm not grateful. Stealth skills are something I was woefully lacking in before today. Thank you for providing them."

Without saying a word, Logan leapt forward, and delivered a swift blow with his palm towards the black-clad man's head, but found that in only a second, the man had brushed his attack off and spun around to deliver a long, sweeping kick, that knocked Logan back into the far wall uncomfortably.

"What was that, bub?" Logan asked, wiping blood away from his mouth, "Tai Kwon Doe? Mui Tai?"

"Heavily modified." the man in the black replied, sounding completely confident as he spoke, "Jeet Kun Doe."

"Bruce Lee..." Logan muttered, his feelings of curiosity over that strange, but talented fighter swelling up in him.

"Unfortunately, no." the figure replied, "He was dead by the time I discovered my mutant powers. I had to settle for one of his pupils, and a few dozen experts who know how to modify techniques for greater effectiveness. Iron Fist, Shang-Chi, Captain America and the like."

"I know Cap." Logan muttered a reply. "He'd never teach a burglar."

"Unless he didn't realize he was teaching a burglar." the man replied, and Logan began to slowly understand a bit of what the mysterious fighter was talking about. That strange fighter was a mutant, and his mutant power was the power to absorb skills... maybe even from everyone around him. Logan had to pray he had no other mutant powers, because that alone would probably take everything he had to bring down.

Immediately, Logan clenched both fists tightly, and a "shuck" sound was heard as three long, metal claws extended from the back of each of his fists. He could tell that the figure in the black had noticed the claws already, and recognized the danger.

In a moment, Logan leapt upward, then dove to the ground from mid-air with incredible speed, both sets of claws outstretched toward the figure's legs, but the burglar leapt into the air, bracing its legs against Logan's wrists to knock his claws aside, then delivering one simple kick in mid-air to Logan's face, and at first, Logan thought that that would leave him vulnerable to attack, but then, the man vanished.

There was no flash of light, puff of smoke or anything. One moment he was there, and the next, he was gone.

"Another mutant power." Thought Logan worriedly as he scrambled to his feet, and felt a fist drive into his back.

Logan coughed, but leapt forward to find the mysterious stranger standing in front of him, however he reacted quickly, striking out in two sideways blows with his hands, followed by another with his knee, but the figure merely ducked to avoid the first two blows, then swerved off to one side to avoid the knee. At that point, Logan turned the knee blow into a sideways kick, and the figure responded with a blocking maneuver with both of its arms that incorporated a technique of one arm punching the other from the side opposite the attack, so as to limit the shock of the kick's impact. Logan had never seen anything like it.

Just then, however, the figure rose up again, and Logan attacked with both hands, but this time, the figure merely leaned back, out of range of the claws and swept Logan's arms aside with its own, grabbing him by the shirt, and fell to the ground, vaulting Logan over his head.

Logan's landing was anything but soft, and worse yet, he knew that person had been telling the truth about the skills he'd stolen. That last throwing technique had definitely been gleaned from Captain America.

Swiftly, the figure advanced on Logan as he lay on the floor, knocking his claws to one side with its foot, and snapped its fingers, causing a burst of heat to appear around them. Logan couldn't see the intense heat, but he could tell it was there. Another mutant power, perhaps. Logan had to wonder how many mutants in the world were like that one; gifted in so many different ways.

"I could burn you to the bone right now," the man said, "but I don't want to run the risk of damaging the disc."

"You stay away from him!" came a voice from behind the two fighters, which made the black-clad figure turn to look for the source of the voice, but he registered no real surprise when he saw that the figure who'd addressed him was a boy covered in densely-packed snow...

* * *

The doors to the hallway leading to the Professor's room swung open with a scent of ozone, as the mysterious girl advanced through them, to find Professor Charles Xavier himself riding swiftly towards her position in his wheelchair, looking at her with anger in his eyes.

"Who are you?" he asked.

"Oh, you'll know soon enough." the girl replied, stepping forward to bend over the Professor purposefully, "Just gimme a kiss, sugah..."

"You will stop this immediately!" the Professor exclaimed, wheeling his chair back further away from her. However, when she didn't seem to be listening, he place both hands to his temples, and the girl could tell that a mutant power was swarming towards her, but it was falling into chaos, and failing to accomplish its mission as soon as it got close enough to her brain.

The Professor was dumbfounded as his hands lowered from his temples, unsure of how that person could have so completely withstood his mental probes, but in response, the girl brushed aside the hair over her right ear with a casual flick, showing the Professor a glint of metal nestled between her head and the top of her ear.

"So that's the answer." the professor thought, "Whoever this person is, she has a psychic scrambler. I didn't even know they were made that small."

"It's not gonna work, sugah." the girl said, "Why not make it easy on yahself? Let's make these last moments... a little fun..."

The professor continued to back down the hallway, as the girl advanced on him, still smiling, still ready, at any moment, to pucker up. At last, Professor Xavier found himself backing into a window at the end of the hall, and could go no further. The girl was on him almost at once.

"Now, lets have that kiss." the girl said, puckering up...

…To find a blast of crimson energy shattering the window behind her, clipping her shoulder as it passed by. In response, she turned around to face a boy wearing red sunglasses; Scott.

"No way, lady!" Scott said, still holding onto his glasses with his left hand, as if to seem threatening, "I'm not letting you touch him!"

* * *

The man in the black costume chuckled slightly when he saw the snowy person in front of him, then said "Kid, don't embarrass yourself."

Bobby, however, was serious, the snow around him hardening slightly as he willed it to begin forming into impact-resistant ice crystals.

"I mean it." Bobby said, "I'm Frost Guy, and if you want to hurt anybody around here, you'd better start with me, because I'm the world's greatest mutant super hero!"

"Frost... Guy?" the figure replied with a clear aire of scorn, "Well, I didn't want you to make yourself look like an idiot, kid, but now I suppose it's too late. We may as well get this over with..."

Keeping one boot braced carefully against Logan's claws, the figure raised its hands, both open and ready as Bobby sprouted a long, sharp sword made of ice from one hand, and charged to the attack, rushing forward at the dark figure, who merely ducked to one side and kneed Bobby in the chest with his free leg, then Bobby was on the floor.

"Kid, I've fought with humans you couldn't beat." the dark figure said, "You're an embarrassment to mutant kind."

However, just then, the dark figure had noticed something he hadn't before. Bobby was lying perfectly still on the floor, and there was a new shadow behind him.

"No!" the dark figure exclaimed, swiping out behind himself with one hand, to shatter the snowman that had grown there moments before, only to realize his mistake.

"GOTCHA!" Bobby roared, having leapt up the moment the dark figure's attention was diverted, and swung in a wide arc with his blade, forcing the figure to leap to one side, to avoid the attack, but just as he was about to retaliate, Logan was on his feet, leaping past Bobby towards the figure, both sets of claws outstretched in the direction of his neck, and the figure was too much off-balance to do any more dodging. In moments, Logan brought his claws down with unhesitating swiftness and force, splintering the wood of Xavier's desk, and cursing as he did so. The mutant had taken the only escape route left open to him; teleporting away at the last second, before Logan's claws could have torn apart his larynx.

"That was wicked!" Bobby exclaimed, the snow and ice crystals already starting to melt off him.

"You're not bad yourself, kid." Logan replied, then leaned on the desk for a moment, feeling his own autonomicly-activated X-Force repairing his cuts and bruises, and in only a moment more, looked at the computer screen to see a message display reading "Upload Complete."

* * *

"Oh, come on now, honey..." the mysterious girl said as she turned away from the professor and began advancing on Scott, "That big bruisah with the metal couldn't touch me. That lady with the wind fell down lahk a potato sack. What've you got?"

"Something they didn't have." Scott replied angrily, "I never get tired. Keep coming closer, and I swear I'll show you firsthand."

"Come on..." the girl said, her expression hardening, "What's the real story? Spill the beans..."

"Only if you tell me what you were going to do to the Professor." Scott replied, keeping one hand on his glasses.

"Scott, no!" Professor Xavier exclaimed, "Get out of here! Let..."

"Zip it, gramps!" the girl said angrily, forcing one hand out in the Professor's direction, so that a massive gust of wind knocked him off his wheelchair and onto the floor forcefully.

"Sure." the girl said, "Ah'll tell. Ah was gonna give him a great big kiss, and then, after a while, he'd stop struggling, then he'd stop moving, then he'd sorta stop living, except..." at that she made a gesture to indicate her own body "in heah."

"You steal other people's powers." Scott realized aloud, "Well, I'm putting an end to that now!"

With that, Scott Summers removed his glasses.

It had been many months since Scott had taken off his glasses. He even wore them in the shower, and when he slept, and the reason was that it was only when he wore them that the autonomic energy flows that activated his mutant power were disrupted. In other words, only the substance that the glasses were made of; ruby-quartz, could turn his power off, and only when they were within three inches of his optic nerves.

That power was a beam of pure, intense, disruptive kinetic energy that shone crimson when it shone at all, which was all the time his glasses were off. There, for the first time in that mansion, Scott's mutant territory formed itself just over the first layer of his eyes, and all his boundless X-Force flooded into it, firing out as a sustained, concentrated beam of force, powerful enough to level buildings. The girl was hit in the face with it full force.

What Professor Mccoy had said earlier about mutant powers was true. The more they were used, the faster the mutant's body could produce X-Force, and since Scott's mutant power expended such a huge amount of X-Force so constantly, he had regularly found himself exhausted at many points over the last six months. When his mutant power had first manifested, it had only been activated for a few seconds, before its massive power drain had worn him out, and he collapsed, exhausted, but as time had gone on, it had taken longer and longer for his mutant powers to tire him. Before the Professor had developed the ruby-quartz glasses for him, Scott had been helplessly expending power into beams, which he'd needed to aim almost directly up for six hours straight, in order for them to wear themselves out, and stop firing for a while, and that meant that his body had been adapting... Changing... Growing to make itself capable of generating more X-Force in a shorter time, until recently, when he'd found that although the glasses prevented the beams from actually appearing most of the time, his body had continued to adapt and grow stronger with his mutant energy. As powerful as his optic blasts were, it had gotten to the point where he could fire them twenty-four seven, and not be weakened in the least by it, and the rest of the time, his bodily energy levels were fantastic, though he still had an easy time getting to sleep. In fact, Scott Summers generated more X-Force than any mutant Professor Xavier had ever seen.

However, although the leftover force from Scott's blast was putting cracks in the surrounding hallway and furniture, and had already torn several pieces out of the girl's outfit, it clearly wasn't doing any damage to her. In fact, aside from being upset that her outfit was getting shredded, she didn't seem to really be feeling it at all.

In only a moment, the girl was on top of Scott, covering his eyes with her left hand, leaving those beams to tear her left glove apart, as she chuckled at the sensation of all that force, sort of making her hand itch, then she grabbed Scott Summers and kissed him right on the lips.

For three seconds they kissed, then five, then seven, then the girl let him drop to the floor. His mutant power had stopped working, and she was smiling.

"Well, that's that." the girl said, turning back away from the unconscious Scott, to face the Professor again, when suddenly, her broad grin faded, and the Professor rolled himself into an adjoining doorway in a hurry, as an optic blast was fired out of the girl's eyes, blasting his wheelchair into spare parts, and shattering the window nearby with its leftover concussive force. The girl seemed to realize that something was wrong as she started to get dizzy, and another optic blast dug a trench through the ceiling of that hallway, as she tried to control it, but found that she couldn't shape that mutant territory at all, and it was eating up her X-Force like mad!

"At this rate, ah'll be down in seconds!" Anna Marie Darkholme thought to herself "Ah'll be totally drained! Down and out! Ah've got ta get out of here!"

Keeping her eyes carefully covered, though she could feel the optic blasts impacting with her fingers as she did so, Anna Marie dove through the shattered window, falling two stories, to crack the concrete of one of the Xavier Institute's walkways just before the drain on her X-Force proved to be too much, and she blacked out.

* * *

When Anna Marie came to, she carefully avoided opening her eyes. She could feel that her whole body was covered in a large, warm blanket, which was restrictive to her movements, and very stuffy, considering what a warm night it was, but she knew how much of her outfit had been torn up, as well as whose large, strong and soft arms were carrying her through the night in her escape from the Xavier Institute, and so she knew she was being rescued; not kidnapped.

"Ahm up, Freddy." she said, "We can talk."

"Call me Fred now." she heard him say in that gruff, but still young-sounding voice of his, "I'm not a kid anymore Anna."

"How long was ah out?" Anna Marie asked.

"'Bout ten minutes. We're almost back."

"Did Alex get what he needed?"

"Uh-huh. You?"

"...No." Anna Marie replied hesitatingly, "Not really, ah... no."

"Man..." Fred replied, "Raven's gonna be pissed."

"Maybe." Anna Marie said, "Theah was this kid who really took me bah surprise. Ahm going to have ta tell mothah her information about the new students wasn't good enough."

Fred wasn't sure what to say to that, so as usual in that kind of situation, he just kept his big mouth shut, which was probably for the best. Anna Marie was running simple math calculations in her mind. She'd touched the kid for about seven and a half seconds, which meant that the power drain wouldn't even be close to permanent. In fact, he'd probably have all his weird, uncontrollable powers back within twenty minutes or so, which still meant that she was going to have to keep her own eyes closed that whole time.

It was one of the first times she'd ever needed to look to Fred for backup, and for some reason, she didn't really think that was so bad. Not having to tackle all the responsibility at once was definitely a nice break, and what is great power, after all, if not a heavy responsibility?

* * *

Scott opened his eyes carefully and hesitantly as he slowly regained consciousness. He was relieved to find that someone had put his glasses back on him while he was asleep, but wasn't sure where he was; just that he was looking upwards at a metal ceiling.

"You gave us quite a scare for that first half hour." came the voice of Professor Xavier from nearby, "But after that, it was obvious that all you needed was some rest. I don't think any of us really wanted to move you."

"Can I get up?" Scott asked.

"I suspect so." the Professor replied in reasonably good humor.

Slowly, Scott slid off the padded medical table he'd been laid out on and let his shoes come to rest on the metal of the room's floor.

"What is this place?" Scott asked, "I wasn't shown this room on the tour."

"I'd hoped none of you would ever have to see it." the Professor replied grimly. "This is the infirmary."

"How are Ororo and Piotr?" Scott asked, suddenly remembering his fallen friends.

"Ororo suffered a bump to the head, but nothing series." Xavier explained, "As for Piotr..."

Xavier hesitated for several moments before he dared to speak again, however.

"He may wish that I not tell you the extent of what his injuries were, but I can tell you that he's going to pull through. He's in the best of hands, so to speak."

* * *

"Alright." Mccoy said with a smile, "Now, how does this feel?"

"Just fine." Piotr droned in a bored tone of voice.

"And this?"

"Fine."

"And this?"

"Da. Da. DA! It is all fine! May I leave now?"

"Well..." Mccoy scratched his chin as he considered poking the boy in one more rib, but eventually decided against it, "I am happy to report that aside from being short about three pints of good humor, there is no longer anything wrong with you that time and bed rest won't fix." Mccoy said with a smile on his face, "I must say, though; you were a challenging case."

"Da." Piotr replied, "Opening my armor must have been difficult."

"Oh, it was. No mistake about that." Mccoy replied as he began putting away surgical equipment, "But the real hard part was repairing the damage to your small intestine. There was impact trauma, of course, but the way it was all twisted up like a pretzel? Brrr... Most unsightly."

"I do not care." Piotr replied, though the descriptions made him shiver slightly as well.

"As long as you don't intend to take another blow like that, neither do I, anymore." Mccoy said, but Piotr frowned deeper than ever when he heard that.

"I... I wasn't strong enough." Piotr muttered, "I came here to learn to survive as a mutant, and I wasn't strong enough."

"Well, no one is invincible," Mccoy responded, his smile starting to fade just a little, as he tried to reassure the young mutant, "and sometimes, even people who are, or think they are immune to harm, find themselves sulking and unhappy over some loss, like Achilles in his tent. You just have to cope with it as best you can."

Then Mccoy said no more, and neither did Piotr. There was little more that mere words could heal.

* * *

Xavior's study was a wreck. Books lay on the floor, walls were cracked, and there were soaked spots at several points on the rug, not to mention six deep gashes in his desk, made by razor-sharp adamantium claws.

Nonetheless, Xavier sat in his new wheelchair among the debris, looking out a window at the cracked cobblestones of his school, which had once seemed so much more like a work of art than a place of learning; at least when they were looked at from some angles.

Xavier didn't turn even slightly from the view as the door to his study opened, and Logan stepped in. Logan, of course, knew what was about to be said, and had decided that it would be unwise to speak first.

"My friend, I owe an apology to many people for what I allowed to happen yesterday." Xavier said, looking very sad as he continued to stare out the window, "I should apologize to you, foremost, because you warned me against this very thing as sternly as a friend can, and I wouldn't listen. My students also deserve apologies, and more, but I think that for the first time in my life, I am truly beginning to understand why bad things happen to good people. I needed to see this, to convince me of what needs to be done."

Finishing his sentence, Xavier turned his wheelchair away from the window, and drove right over several books towards the other side of the desk, to face Logan directly.

"As of this very moment, you are now an instructor at my school. Any student may choose to opt out of your class, of course, but I am making you available to them, and I authorize you to use any means at your disposal, short of seriously injuring them, to teach those students willing to accept it the art of self defense. Logan, I'm sorry. I was wrong."

For a moment, Logan wasn't sure what to say. Some part of him wanted to just accept the honor, but it wasn't that simple. Memories of the night before still haunted him; memories of Bobby Drake's near-victory over the strange man, and how little actual strategy, discipline, or self-control had been involved in it, and when Logan finally opened his mouth, the words that came out surprised even him.

"I was wrong too, Charlie." he said, "I was lookin' at these kids like ordinary recruits. They ain't that at all."

As he said that, Logan looked out the window, which Charles Xavier had been using to remind himself of his vulnerability only moments before, and saw a very different sight. He saw Piotr returning to his friends. Bobby stood off to one side, but Scott and Kurt were patting him on the back, and speaking kind words to him with smiles on their faces, to the point where a small grin seemed almost to be creeping over Piotr's face as well. The girls were talking to one another nearby, smiling and sharing the personal experiences of the night before, as they dared an occasional glance at the boys, the sight of which seemed to cheer them up.

"These kids have got hard life lessons to learn. There's no point trying to say they don't." Logan said, a grin creeping over his face, "But from the looks of things, they might not have to learn 'em the hard way, like I did. In fact, these kids of yours might just turn out alright..."

Despite the guilt with which he'd been tormenting himself, Professor Xavier couldn't help but smile when he heard that. It was the first sign of optimism that Logan had shown in as long as Charles Xavier had known him. For the moment, Xavier decided to not even mention that he'd discovered what, precisely, had been taken from his computer...

* * *

Raven Darkholme rang a small bell as she entered the dining room, drawing the attention of all those present; Alex, Fred and Anna Marie.

"Well, after the total success of last week, I expected last night's mission to go better," Raven began, removing her mutant territory, which caused her skin to regain its natural, blue color, and her eyes to gleam gold as she spoke, "but I guess one can't succeed at everything they do. At the very least, we'll have other opportunities, thanks to Alex's success."

Quickly, Raven held up a disc, still in its case, and said, "This disc is only a copy. I'm giving the original to a contact of mine, who's trying to make it usable for non-psychics, but the long and short of it is that this disc contains the blueprints of a device designed to track down the precise locations of mutants..."

* * *

End


	2. X Institute 2: Stormclouds

The Xavier Institute Neo

Issue 2

"Storm Clouds"

* * *

Raven Darkholme knocked sharply on the door of her contact's laboratory three times.

"Go away!" came the reply from within, "I'm in the middle of an important task!"

"Would that happen to be the task I gave you?" Raven called through the door.

Suddenly, there was a sound of something clattering around from inside the door, then footsteps, then finally, the sound of the door being unlocked, and opening to reveal Raven's contact.

"Raven!" the man exclaimed, "I'm sorry. At first, I didn't recognize your knock."

"It's broad daylight." Raven replied, "I had to be in disguise, Nate. You know that."

Nate was a rather tall sort of person. He was dressed in a white lab coat with a simple, white shirt and black pants underneath, with black shoes on his feet, and he had black hair and a goatee. His eyes, as always, were red.

"One can't be too careful with the sort of work I do." Nate replied as he stepped across the room, "But I'm dreadfully sorry. I haven't answered your question. Yes, in fact. The task you gave me is indeed what I was working on. Right this way, please."

As Raven reverted to her true form, following Nate through his laboratory, she could see signs of past experiments all around her. Old parts on shelves, labeled and archived, finished and unfinished machines, and of course, post-it notes hung on many flat surfaces. It was solid enough proof, to Raven, that far from simply being a talented scientist, Nathan was absolutely brilliant.

What's more, as Nathan led her into the experimental technology room, she could see several dome-like devices made of metal, with wires and spare circuits all around them. It was quite a sight.

"If you've come to check up on my progress, I will try not to consider that an insult." Nathan commented as he moved over to one of the domes, and went back to tinkering with it, which apparently, he'd been doing prior to her arrival.

"I did want to see what you'd accomplished so far," Raven replied, "but I never expected to see anything like this. Are these all mutant detectors?"

"Oh, yes. Definitely." Nathan replied, shutting the upper flap on the dome he'd been working on, "Every last one would work, if a gifted psychic were to put it on. I'll probably wind up disassembling most of them later. This one here took a lot of experimentation to make it work properly, however."

As he said that, Nathan held out the dome he'd just been working on in one hand.

"Go ahead." he said as he saw her hesitation, "Take it. This machine operates on contact with mutant energy, not just psychic energy. I'd complain to you about how difficult that was to accomplish, but I don't suspect you'd care, or really understand much of it."

"Well, this is what I care about." Raven muttered as she took the device from him, and put it on her head. However, nothing seemed to happen.

"It'll need a power source, naturally." Nathan replied, handing Raven a cord clearly intended to go into the device, "Of course, this will mean that the device is not portable, but without further experimentations into micro energy fusion, I can only do so much."

"No." Raven replied, "That's alright. How sturdy is it?"

"Well, don't let your daughter or mister Dukes near it," Nathan said, "but normal human efforts would be unable to break it without some kind of weapon."

Raven, however, seemed to lose heart as soon as Nathan mentioned her daughter; a fact that didn't escape his notice.

"Something's troubling you, Raven." Nate observed.

"It's Anna Marie." Raven replied, her look of sadness turning into one of frustration, "She's really becoming unpredictable. Just a week or so ago, when Alex got the blueprints for this thing, she came home with both eyes closed, insisting that she'd been tricked by a boy at the Institute."

"She's at that age." Nathan replied matter-of-factly.

Raven rolled her eyes before replying.

"Anna Marie said that there was a boy there who fired beams of energy from his eyes, and she decided to temporarily take him, even though I hadn't told her to take any of the students. The result was that his mutant power burst forth from her own eyes, nearly draining her completely over the course of a few seconds. She was barely able to get to Fred in time."

"You mean she fired his beams by accident?" Nathan asked curiously.

"No. Apparently, the boy's mutant power is autonomic." Raven replied.

In only a moment, Nate was standing right in front of Raven, staring directly into her eyes.

"You mean an autonomic mutant power that nearly drained your daughter inside of a few seconds?" Nate asked in clear amazement, "How did the boy keep from collapsing himself?"

For a moment, Raven felt a little scared. Nate had a look in his eyes she'd never seen before, as if he was awakening to new possibilities, and plotting out some sort of scheme in his mind. He looked like he was about to invent something new; something thrilling.

"Well, to hear her talk about it, it seemed like the boy didn't have any trouble at all, in terms of staying awake." Raven replied, not sure what the scientist was getting at.

"Fantastic!" Nate exclaimed, "It's too good to be true! This... this... this... but no. I mustn't leap to conclusions. I have to be scientific about this. I need more data. Raven, do you know this boy's name?"

"No." Raven replied, "I don't even think Anna Marie does, but she'd definitely recognize him if she saw him again."

"Wonderful!" Nate replied, "I have to know more about this boy. Raven, the next time you make an attempt on Xavier, I want you to let me know in advance. I have an idea... I think this boy may be... But it's still too early to tell."

"What is it?" Raven asked, no longer even a little afraid, "What's going through your head, Nate?"

For a moment, Nathan seemed to consider telling Raven everything he was thinking about, even if she didn't understand it, but at last, he merely sighed, calming down over the course of a few seconds.

"Oh, it might be nothing. Just a pipe dream I've had in the back of my mind for... well... for quite some time. Anyway, getting back to your daughter, the best advice I can offer is to keep her away from humans whenever possible. Remember, she is our best hope for the future. Oh... and for the love of God, don't let her wander off by herself. She has all the power she needs already to find out certain things of which she should... stay oblivious."

Raven nodded slowly, entirely unsure of how, precisely, she was meant to follow her friend's advice...

* * *

Indeed, if Raven had known just what had happened to Anna Marie at that point, she would have been even more doubtful about her ability to keep an eye on the girl as a mother, because Anna Marie was, at that moment, carrying a flashlight down a long, wooden corridor that stretched out before her and behind her for what looked, to her, like miles, and she had a pair of large wings, like those of a bee protruding from her back.

The place Anna Marie was in was a space inside one of the walls of her bedroom in Raven's house, and she was herself about the size of a wasp, carrying the flashlight she'd brought with her while shrinking down. Shrinking objects was a power she controlled by touch, and occasionally, she would hide away in the walls to read or think, or do anything else she wanted to do, but couldn't do when she had someone watching her.

"Alright." she said, putting down the flashlight and seating herself in the middle of the wooden wall, "C'mon out."

At once, three figures stepped into the flashlight's beam, and Anna Marie recognized them all. They were the one's she'd taken, and in doing so, they'd become her allies.

"You're looking better today." Henry Pym said with a smile.

"Well, ah think mah powahs are almost back to normal." she replied.

"It's more than your powers." Janet Van Dyne said, "You've been feeling off ever since we merged. I think you may have thought you were invincible before, but now that you realize you're not..."

"Ah'm starting to feel a smidge bettah." Anna Marie replied, though that undeniable fact confused her horribly, "Why?"

"'Tis the desire for larger challenges which drives the soul of even the greatest of warriors." Answered the mighty Thor, "For an unbeatable creature, challenge doth not exist."

"I don't know." Henry replied, "It's probably just a chemical thing."

"I know what it is," Janet said, walking up to Anna Marie and bending over to look her in the face as she sat on the floor, smiling at her in genuine kindness as she said, "You were worried Raven was trying to turn you into a super weapon, but now you're part of the team again, and you love having that chance to work alongside the others, don't you? Besides, knowing you're not perfect gives you the chance to improve."

"Evaluate thy opponent's strengths more carefully before thy next battle." Thor advised her, "Attack only when thou art certain they cannot turn it to their advantage."

Anna Marie nodded, and the three disappeared. The avengers had definitely been very wise people, and Anna Marie was glad to have acquired their undivided attention, though a thought did occur to her that the rest of the world was deprived of their wisdom, as a result, but it was such a foul-tasting thought, that she pushed it aside immediately, as she took up her flashlight and headed back for the exit of the wall, to returned to the inside of her room.

* * *

Logan looked around, at those who'd gathered in the open yard of the Xavier Institute in front of him. Kurt was there, his long tail swishing back and forth through the grass. Scott, of course, was attending, and Bobby, but Logan knew both of them had the will to succeed in a fight. Piotr he hadn't seen in battle, but the look of determination in his eyes was even stronger. Ororo was there as well, probably largely because of her failure during the previous attack, and Jubilation seemed to think the whole thing was one great big opportunity.

The only student who hadn't agreed to attend was Jean.

"Still, six outta seven ain't bad." Logan muttered as he approached the group, and clapped both hands together once to get their attention. They seemed to swiftly drop their conversations, probably because they were at least a little afraid of him.

"Awright." Logan said as they all turned to face him, "Why'd you six come here?"

For several moments, none of them responded, not sure what to say, until Scott remarked, "Well, I came to learn, sir."

"Yup." Logan replied, "How?"

That time, Piotr was ready with a response, saying "To defend ourselves through the use of your techniques and methods."

Logan seemed to pause for a moment as he saw a look in Piotr's eyes that he'd come to view as dangerous in others before him, but he didn't bring it up. Instead, he spoke again.

"Okay. So you wanna learn self-defense? Martial arts? Secret fighting techniques?" as he said that, Piotr's blank expression blossomed into a grin, but it was soon to fall again, as Logan said, "Well, you're gonna have to wait. Today's lesson's different."

The other students weren't sure what to expect after a comment like that, but Logan walked right past them towards the woods, remarking "C'mere" to them as he passed, and they, in turn, followed him.

Logan led the ground of six deep into the woods that were part of the Xavier Institute's surrounding grounds, until they were over a dozen yards from the edge of the forest. Then he turned around and spoke again.

"Okay, this is a good spot. Now, before we get started, I think you oughtta know somethin'. My classes ain't like other people's classes. There's gonna be fightin', and you will get bruised. At least to start with, until you get the hang of it. If you feel like chickening out, now's your chance. On the other hand, if you want to survive in the outside world, stay right were you are."

No one moved.

"Okay." Logan said, continuing, "Now, this lesson is gonna be like a real mission in the army. There's no time to train, or improve, or practice. You just have to accomplish the objective and get back out alive. Easy, right?"

Nobody replied. They weren't sure it would be.

"We'll save introductions for next lesson too." Logan said, still looking very stern, "You all know each others names, and since I don't expect any of you to come outta this lesson a winner, I don't care what your names are."

Nobody replied to that either, although some of them wanted to.

"Now here's your mission guidelines for today." Logan began, "Don't leave these woods, don't climb any trees, and don't travel outside the institute grounds. Your mission is simple. Attack me successfully."

"What?" everyone said a variation on that, but it was Scott who'd spoken first by a fraction of a second.

"You heard me." Logan said, "Punch me, kick me, head butt me, or hit me with a blunt object or a mutant power. I don't care. Anything heavy enough to leave a bruise that isn't the ground counts."

"You mean we are intended to use our mutant powers against you?" Kurt asked.

"With ears like those, I figured you'd hear better'n that." Logan replied.

"That's dangerous, sir!" Ororo exclaimed, her smile having fallen from her face.

"Oh, yes. It is." Logan replied, "But don't worry. I'll take it easy on ya."

"Look, sir." Scott said, "All kidding aside, if we use our mutant powers against you, you're going to get creamed."

"Well, then you got nothin' to worry about." Logan said.

Scott looked to the others, as if for some further excuse to give as to why he couldn't attack Logan all out, but what else could he do? Logan had said he wanted to be attacked. Still, Scott decided to start out small. Even without using his mutant powers, he suspected he might be able to wear Logan down enough to get in a good punch.

Rushing forward, Scott ran up a long, sloped rock, and leapt into the air, throwing punch after punch downward in Logan's direction, but he easily brushed every last one aside with speed like nothing Scott had ever seen, and although Scott was attacking too fast to speak intelligibly at the same time, Logan seemed to still retain that ability.

"C'mon, kid! Get the lead out! Stop takin' it easy on me! You're wastin' it!"

Then, Logan delivered a counter-attack, brushing aside Scott's arms with his own, then diving to the ground and tripping Scott up with a kick behind the legs. Scott fell to the forest floor with a thud, and all the others, watching from nearby, could tell that he'd hit his head pretty badly.

"Aaagh!" Scott screamed, rubbing the back of his head as he got up, then for the first time, seemed unwilling to call Logan "sir" as he spoke with loathing in his voice, "Logan, you're so dead!"

Then Scott tore off his glasses, and a single, sustained beam of force shot out from his eyes at Logan, who grinned as he slid to one side, out of its path.

Scott put the glasses back on after only a moment, but he couldn't speak. Logan hadn't been exaggerating about his skill. Scott's optic blast had torn through about six trees behind Logan's former position, but Logan hadn't been hit by the blast, or by the falling wood.

"Not a bad start, kid." Logan said, not even breathing hard as he spoke, "You got a look in your eyes there for a moment, like you wanted to hurt me real bad, but you shouldn'ta put them specks back on."

Then, Logan was standing right in front of Scott, and gave him a swift poke in the neck. In moments after that, Scott was down.

"The rest of you want to wait until this kid wakes up, or come at me now?" Logan asked.

The students cast one another worried looks when they heard that.

* * *

As the crashing noise of trees falling on the Xavier Institute grounds reached Xavier's office, the Professor sighed. Most mutants, of course, had powers that did more physical damage than his when used, but he hoped that Logan wasn't being too rough on them. Still, none of them had contacted him with their thoughts, which either meant they were alright, or were too distracted. The Professor couldn't help but feel worried by that thought, however. Even as Jean stepped into his office silently, his thoughts drifted for several seconds to those he felt he needed to worry about more.

"P-professor?" she asked as she stepped over to his desk.

"Yes, Jean." the Professor said, "What is it?"

"Professor, I'm not sure... I'm not sure what to do. The others are out there..."

The Professor's expression softened when she asked him that question. It seemed that Jean was worried about the other students too.

"I'm sure they'll be alright." the professor said, "Mister Logan's training isn't for everyone. Don't worry about it."

In those few words, the professor had basically said that he knew Jean had misgivings about not joining them in the training, and that they were unfounded.

"Did you read my mind just now?" Jean asked.

"Just intuition." the professor replied, "You see, Jean, the two of us are really a lot alike. Oh, I read thoughts instead of moving small objects, but at your age, I don't think either of us ever really wanted to hurt anyone if it could be helped. Besides, your abilities are probably psychic in nature, like my own, and if so, there are other ways to hone them."

So, the professor moved his chair into the middle of his office, and motioned for Jean to follow, then spoke to her again.

"Sit down about three feet away from me."

"Where?" Jean asked, not seeing any chairs, "On the carpet?"

"Yes. Please." Xavier replied, so Jean sat on the floor as best she could with her hands out behind her.

"Now try to relax the muscles of your body, and focus your mind on what you want it to do." Xavier explained slowly, closing his own eyes, "That's how psychic powers work. Psionic powers, which are the kind of mutant powers we possess, can grow in strength like other mutant powers, but in order for that to happen, they must be taxed to their limit, and reaching that limit is a challenge, because you have to be able to summon up all your will to use your abilities. Psychic powers are always stronger when there's a greater degree of will behind them. If you have nothing better to do, Jean, let's practice will together. It'll make it a lot easier for you to hone your abilities in the future."

So, nodding sadly, since she was still a little worried about the others, Jean started her training with the professor in the relative peace of his study.

* * *

"Gee." Logan muttered, seating himself on an old tree stump as the students all panted and gasped, many of them with bruises at more than one spot on their bodies, "That was a little disappointing."

"I don't get it!" Jubilation muttered, still gasping for breath, "Why can't I hit him?"

"Got some experience dodging artillery." Logan replied, having apparently overheard her, "Those energy bombs of yours are kinda the same thing."

"This isn't working." Ororo muttered, then looked carefully at Logan again, and pointed to her ears. Bobby didn't seem to get the message, but the others, including Scott, who'd just woken up, understood it to mean "he can hear us from over there."

Quickly, Scott began scratching symbols into the dirt, which even Bobby understood. They said, in shorthand, that Logan was a way better fighter than any of them, and if they wanted any kind of chance at victory, they needed a really good strategy.

Once or twice, Piotr would scratch something into the dirt, intended to look like a plan, but Scott would shake his head each time. At last, however, Piotr made a sand drawing that Scott understood, and he realized, nodding, that it was a good idea, and had given him inspirations of his own. Bobby watched in wonder as Scott drew out illustrations of his battle plans. The attack had several stages, and it meant that all of them would be cooperating, but if nothing else, they'd teach Logan a thing or two, and if it was against the rules... well, so be it.

* * *

Quickly, everyone got into position, and Bobby gave Jubilation what he thought was a charming smile, which made her feel very much abandoned by God as they got ready to do their part. The first part of the plan was Ororo's.

Ororo had taken to the air, soaring upwards through the trees, as she felt the air all around her responding to her command, and looked downward to see Logan watching her.

Ororo wasn't sure the move would work at first, since she'd rarely called forth a cyclone before, using only a glance at where she wanted it to be, but it seemed to work almost at once, starting up right under Logan's feet. In only a moment, he'd reacted, using the wind currents to leap sideways, then braced himself against a tree, and snapped off one of its smaller branches, intending to use it as a weapon, but as he threw the surprisingly-heavy branch in Ororo's direction, he could tell he'd made a mistake. Even with the branch headed for her, she was still smiling.

Quickly, Logan spun around, as he felt the temperature lowering from behind him, and found himself having to duck in and out of sharp icicles, that were flying forth from the inside of the tornado, propelled in his direction by moving air, as he heard the branch he'd thrown crashing to a halt in the distance.

As much as Logan detested the idea, the icicles were getting too close, and it wasn't as if they were alive, so he drew out his claws with a "shuk" sound, and moved to cut right through one.

However, as soon as Logan had gotten through the first layer of ice, he froze, so to speak, in place, and leapt back away from them. It was unbelievable that the kids had thought up such a tactic on their own, but the icicles weren't just sharp projectiles. Beneath the first layer of ice were concealed bombs of glowing energy, clearly Jubilation's work. As the carefully-crafted tornado continued to fire razor-sharp bombs at Logan, pushing him further and further back, he heard the sound of Scott firing another optic blast, and had only a moment to analyze what was going on, before the enormous, metal body of Piotr came barreling through the forest at a speed that could only have been caused by Scott's beam being fired directly into his back.

With the sharp bombs headed towards him from one direction, and the metal boy coming at him like a bullet from another, there was only one direction Logan could still go to dodge both, and only a quick leap could have carried him over the debris that was already gathered on the ground. Therefore, no technique on Earth could have prevented him from being in mid-air, and unable to change his course in that one split second that he dodged both well-crafted attacks, and felt a fist driving into his back.

Logan fell to the ground with a metallic-sounding clang, as Kurt landed behind him, the smell of brimstone still lingering in the air. Kurt had teleported behind Logan the moment he'd jumped, and the rest was history.

"Apologies, Logan," Kurt said, "but it seems this lesson is ours. We have completed the mission you set for us."

For a few moments, Logan didn't speak as the students dissolved their mutant territories and approached him slowly; cautiously.

"Yeah." he said at last. "Yeah. Nice job."

Kurt and a few of the others smiled when he said that, but he wasn't smiling as he spoke.

"I said I was a little disappointed a few minutes ago," Logan explained, "but I ain't disappointed anymore. This lesson was all about understanding the group dynamic, and I ain't never seen teamwork skills like that. You've already got what you really need to win fights, so long as you work together. Tomorrow, we can worry about individual training, but for now, it's an honor to have you all in my class."

* * *

"Blast him." Piotr remarked as they re-entered the Xavier Institute, "All that, and he shows us no fury. I feel our plan was wasted on him."

Then Piotr headed off in a new direction, and Scott noticed he was headed back towards the student quarters.

"Where are you going, Piotr?" Scott asked.

"I must unwind." Piotr replied, "This has been very difficult for me."

"Yeah, me too." Scott said, "I'm just heading to the gym, though."

Immediately, all eyes were on him.

"After what we all went through together just now," Piotr said, not looking at Scott, "that little boast was in poor taste."

Then, Piotr marched upstairs in the direction of his room.

"Boast?" Scott asked, looking around at the others, but it was only Ororo who replied.

"Scott, you don't know anything about normal people."

Then she was floating up the stairs after Piotr.

Kurt didn't say a word as Scott seemed to just shake a little in surprise, then headed off towards the gym, just as he'd said he would. Kurt Wagner had his own way of unwinding, so although he was tired, he used his mutant power to disappear in a cloud of smoke.

"Well..." Bobby said, making Jubilation feel as if someone had left the front door open, inviting a draft, "I'd say we did pretty good work out there together. You know, if..."

The whole time, he'd been inching a little closer to Jubilation, but at that point, she interrupted him.

"If you get any closer to me, I swear I will manifest an energy bomb inside your mouth."

For a moment, neither said anything, although Bobby backed away a few inches, but at last, replied. "You can't really do that, right? I mean, you can't make a bomb unless you can see where you're making it, right?"

"You know, I'm not really sure..." Jubilation said, turning to face him with a genuine-looking smile on her face, "Want to try it out, just to see? It'd be real fun!"

"Uh, no. No. That's alright, no." Bobby replied, circling around Jubilation on one side, to carefully reach the stairs back up to his room, while maintaining a safe distance from her.

Jubilation felt pretty good about herself as she watched Bobby flee the scene, making her the last to leave the main hall after Logan's lesson, but instead of going to her room like the others, she decided to go to one of the three televisions in the mansion, and watch whatever was on for a while; at least until the bruises went away.

However, as Jubilation passed by the library, she heard the sound of books being moved around, and stepped inside to see who it was.

It turned out to be Jean, who was sitting on the floor between two tables, both eyes closed with, three books floating through the air, and encircling her head. Jubilation didn't usually see her do those kinds of exercises with her mutant power, so she waited until the books were a reasonable distance from Jean's head, then said "Hey."

As predicted, Jean lost her concentration completely at that moment, but none of the falling books hurt her too badly, and pretty soon she was getting up as Jubilation sat on one of the wooden chairs in the library, putting her feet up on the table it accompanied.

"I wasn't sure when you'd get back from..." Jean began, before actually looking at Jubilation, and seeming horrified.

"Is that a black eye?" Jean asked, "You should really have Doctor Mccoy look at that."

"Nah." Jubilation replied, "I used to take worse back on the streets of my own hometown. Sorta feels like home now, to be honest."

"If you're not comfortable with the doctor, I might be able to fix the blood vessels." Jean said, prompting Jubilation to nearly fall backwards in her chair, lowering her feet from the table, and raising both hands in Jean's direction.

"Nuh-uh!" Jubilation exclaimed, "I don't want your freaky mutant power messing around with my eyeballs. There's no way you can control it that well."

"Well, I didn't mean to scare you." Jean replied.

"I'm not scared." Jubilation insisted, "Just don't get in here with that psychic mutant stuff unless you can show me a degree in telekonamic head surgery or something."

"Okay." Jean agreed, a little sad by that point, "I promise I won't mess with your head."

"Cool." Jubilation replied, putting her feet back up on the table. In a moment more, Jean had seated herself across from Jubilation, and was looking at her face, framed by the bottoms of her big, black boots.

"So, apart from the... eye thing... how did the lesson go?" Jean asked.

"Dunno." Jubilation responded with a sort of half-shrug, "I think we all got A's, but Logan idn't exactly a typical teacher. He didn't even tell us what we were supposed to be doing, 'til we'd kinda done it."

"Oh." Jean noted. She wasn't sure what else to say. She had a feeling that Jubilation resented her in some way for not coming along, but Jean just didn't trust Logan. There was a weird vibe around him, like the kind that Jean got around many rough-looking people.

By that point, Jubilation was pretty much just staring at the cracks in the library ceiling, which had increased in number during the attack of the past week. She found it to be, sadly, a better show than most of what she could have pictured flickering across the tube.

"What do you think of Scott?" Jean asked, broaching the only subject she felt that Jubilation and herself might both have an opinion on, since she clearly wasn't much of a reader.

"The kid with the specs? Nice planner." Jubilation replied, "Guy's got a good eye for tactics and... Well... Okay, I guess the truth is, I think he's kinda weird. I mean, when he isn't in class or eating or in his room, it's like he's always running, or jumping, or out in the gym, and I've never seen anybody keep it up for so long. It's creepy."

"But, am I not equally 'creepy?'" came Kurt's voice from the ceiling, not far off. At first, the girls hadn't seen him, because he'd been partially-hidden behind a bookshelf, but as he crawled along the ceiling, continuing to sort through a few books, Jubilation wasn't sure how to react. Kurt was creepier-looking than anybody she'd ever seen, but... he seemed timid and frightened of everyone else all the time; not at all like the demon he resembled.

"What are you doing here, Kurt?" Jean asked, genuinely curious, but a little offended that he'd eavesdropped on their conversation as well.

"Looking for a bible to compare to mine." Kurt replied, "I remembered a specific passage being different in some translations, and was hoping the professor kept some older versions."

Jean was on unfamiliar territory again. She'd never been terribly religious herself.

"Any luck?" she just asked.

"Yes." Kurt replied, "He has three different editions. This will be helpful to me in the future."

"Whoa." Jubilation muttered, "You mean you're into the whole God thing?"

"I... am a person of faith, yes." Kurt replied, still very much nervous, as if expecting Jubilation to blow his head off in the next second.

"I wasn't expecting that." Jubilation just muttered, still looking at Kurt intently, however, as she fell silent.

"Hardly anyone does." Kurt responded, "I suspect the way I look leads them to think I am an atheist, but in fact, it was my abnormal appearance that drove me to God in the first place. I needed to know there was someone who would not by swayed by the way I looked, and the monks whom I found understood my need as a basic, human one. They taught me that God loves all his children, not regardless of appearance, but in all things, even if they look different, they are beautiful to the creator. It is something I need to be reminded of daily. It keeps me from resenting myself."

"Kinda deep for me." Jubilation remarked.

"Perhaps." Kurt said, then went back to the books he was carrying.

"So if that girl ever comes back," Jean said, once again drawing Jubilation's attention, "I mean, she pretty much caved in Piotr's chest, and busted open half the mansion, and Scott's beams can total trees, but they didn't do a thing to her. What are we gonna do about her? Is there some way...?"

"Hell if I know." Jubilation replied, drawing a sharp intake of breath from Kurt, who vanished in a puff of smoke shortly afterward.

"So we can't beat her." Jean said slowly, growing more depressed by the minute.

"Naw. Not yet." Jubilation said, "Piotr showed off his metal form out in the forest today, and man, he's gotta be the strongest guy I ever seen. If she could flatten him no problem, I'd say we're pretty much screwed if she ever comes back. But..."

Jubilation trailed off for a moment, not sure at first if she should share what Scott had told her earlier that morning, but eventually decided it'd be best to let Jean in on it, since she was clearly very curious about it.

"Well, Scott thinks the professor knows who she is." Jubilation said, "But he's being kinda tight-lipped about it. Scott might know who she is too, but he says he isn't sure and doesn't want to scare us until he knows more about it. Sounds kinda spooky, huh?"

Jubilation's last comment hadn't been intended to frighten Jean, but Jean's deep worry over the strange girl who'd attacked the mansion once before with unnatural powers continued to grow as Jubilation talked.

* * *

Scott smiled as he sat down to Henry Mccoy's desktop computer, which had been left on, and had just been about to go into screensaver mode. At last, he could find out the truth.

Scott had been keeping an eye on the staff at the Xavier Institute, and knew for a fact that Mccoy had a very complete data archive of news video clips and radio broadcasts of current and recent events, and there was one thing that nearly everyone in America had a copy of on their computer.

Mccoy's hard drive was arranged very methodically, making it easy for Scott to find what he was looking for. Under Video/News/Disasters he found a file labeled "AvengersCNN," and double-clicked on it.

However, the file didn't open. Instead, a menu was displayed, showing that the file had been encoded with a password requirement. His suspicions growing, Scott selected two other video files under "disasters,' and both of them played just fine. One was an earthquake, the other a market crash. He also found another that was a tornado, accompanied by flooding and riots, but by then, his suspicions had become certainties, and he knew who it was that had punched Piotr. He didn't have her name. No one did, but he knew who and what they were facing.

Closing the folders and the video files, Scott left the computer just as it had been when he'd entered the room, and silently slipped back out, as a pair of curious and amused eyes watched him from close to the ceiling.

* * *

"Piotr?" Ororo asked as she knocked on the door to his room, "Piotr? May I come in?"

"Very well." Piotr replied, sounding a little frustrated, as Ororo opened the door and floated into his room.

However, the moment Ororo entered, Piotr seemed intensely frustrated, and grabbed at a large piece of paper he'd apparently been working at, then exclaimed in great anger, "When you are in my room, land please!"

Ororo, realizing that the winds that kept her aloft were disturbing the art he'd been working on, and landed quickly, forcing the winds around her to calm. It wasn't often that Ororo let her feet feel ground underneath them. It felt bizarre to her, but it was worth it, if it was what Piotr wanted.

"Thank you." he said gruffly as he picked up a paintbrush from a nearby table, and continued to work on his art. Ororo was surprised to see that it was actually quite good, considering that it hadn't been finished yet. It was a picture of a field, full of beautiful flowers, being shone down on by a sun that was surrounded on the edges by a silvery sheen. Dark, dirty-looking, brown clouds with dots of red through them seemed to be fleeing the presence of the sun, and the flowers underneath the dark clouds were wilting more than the others. It was only the edges of the picture that Ororo was sure weren't finished.

"So you paint." Ororo observed.

"It is how I unwind; how I express myself. Despite how my other form may appear, I am no tireless machine like Scott, and I find comfort in art, and in expressing my inspirations. I fear they have become darker in recent weeks, however."

"Do you mean that you dislike Xavier and Logan that much?" Ororo asked, "Why are you still here, in that case?"

Piotr looked surprised, removing his brush from the canvas for a minute, as he spoke to her.

"No. I was angry with Logan at first, but even he is attempting to be of help, in his own way. My darker feelings are towards a different person, whom you likely have not met."

Ororo just nodded. She couldn't really picture feeling that upset with something. It was an alien concept to her. She'd always been a little afraid that some day, someone might betray her, but the people of her home country of Kenya had never done that, looking up to her as a gift from heaven, then later a goddess, and when she'd been approached by Professor Xavier, and told the truth about her abilities, he too had been gentle and kind, and never betrayed her. Logan had been rough with her during their lesson, but she'd never really trusted him, so it wasn't a betrayal. Still, the chance that someone she trusted might turn on her one day had certainly never evaporated. She could picture herself becoming truly angry with someone like that, and although she couldn't bring herself to feel the kind of furious emotions that Piotr expressed in his paintings, she could at least understand how a person could feel angry with someone else, and sympathized with him.

"Do you ever paint joyful things?" Ororo asked.

"Yes," Piotr replied, "but not recently, and I may not paint them anymore for a long time, or if I continue to benefit from the training I am receiving here, I may paint in joy fairly soon."

The comment worried Ororo, but she let him be, leaving Piotr to his art; partly out of respect, and partly so that she could again rob her feet of their intended function.

* * *

Scott had called the others to meet with him at about seven thirty in the evening, a couple hours after classes had ended, so for a few minutes, all seven had gathered in Scott's room, but they'd already been talking for at least a minute or two before Bobby (the last to arrive) stepped through the door, closing it behind him.

"...A hundred percent sure of it now." he heard Scott say as Bobby stepped into the room and stood near one wall. Ororo was hovering near the ceiling, with Kurt occupying ceiling space closer to the doorway, and Jean, Jubilation and Piotr were all against the wall opposite Scott. There had only been two chairs, and Jean had decided to be gracious, and let Jubilation have the only available one, since Scott himself was sitting as he spoke to them.

"What exactly are you implying, Scott?" Piotr asked, "You know who the woman was?"

"Something like that." Scott replied, "Do you remember what happened to the Avengers?"

"Ugh." Jubilation replied, "I've been trying not to. What a disaster."

"Yes. Yes, definitely." Scott replied in a hurry, "But remember; the woman had a southern accent. In the tape of the Avengers tragedy, you couldn't see who was attacking them from behind, but when Iron Man started firing, their enemy spoke to him, and I definitely remember her having the same kind of voice as the woman I met that night."

"So what?" Kurt asked, "Many people have accents."

"There's more." Scott continued. "She said she was after the professor, so she could absorb him or something. Also, when I fought with her, she demonstrated some very interesting powers. Unnatural strength, amazing speed, weather control... Sound like anybody we know about?"

"By all that lives!" Piotr exclaimed, "Thor!"

"Right." Scott replied, "It's no wonder you were so badly injured if she's drawing on the strength of a Norse thunder god."

"We cannot compete with that." Piotr muttered, his heart sinking.

"I don't know." Scott replied, "We know who she is, at least, and what kind of powers she has. The professor mentioned her wearing some kind of device to protect herself from psychic attacks, but we have to assume the worst, and suppose she also has the powers of the Wasp and Ant Man. If that's true, then no matter whether we find a way to hurt her or not, preventing her from escaping would be really hard."

"So what do we do?" Ororo asked from above.

"I don't know." Scott said, "If she goes after the professor again, we could be in real trouble. I guess all we can do for now is keep training, and hope Logan can come up with a plan for when we see her next."

* * *

Logan's ears twitched slightly, and he turned to face Professor Xavier with a smile.

"Well, they know." he said, "I told you you shoulda let 'em in on it. There wasn't much point in tryin' to keep it a secret."

"I'd hoped they wouldn't need to be told about it." Xavier replied, "An overly-optimistic hope, I suppose, but maybe I just expected her to be a great deal more foolish than she is, at present, being. When she attacked Scott, it was a poorly-planned move, but she's obviously improving her strategy."

"I doubt it." Logan replied, "I think she's just working with that dark character I told you about. The one who took your files on the mutant detector. Seems like she's kinda the brawn of the combo, with him as the brains, but I wonder why she ain't tried to take his powers yet."

"Perhaps they're working as part of a larger group, who might be upset by a betrayal like that." Xavier said.

"I hope not." Logan muttered, "The two of them are bad enough. They'd take everything we've got to bring down, if we even could, but if they're not the end of it, if there's more..."

* * *

Fred was bored; very bored. He'd spent a couple hours watching television, but as Raven didn't have any video games, much of his time had been spent just kicking back and doing nothing, which was sort of the same thing as watching TV.

Naturally, a part of him wondered where Anna Marie had gone, but it was an idle thought. It had nothing to do with resolving his boredom. Anna Marie was just one of the three people he worked with, but Fred Dukes didn't really have any friends.

"One 'o these days," he thought to himself, "I'm gonna go out on the town, and scare people up a little. The brave ones stick around while I'm there, but there's no human alive I can't scare."

It was a morbid pleasure, but then, he was bored. He could worry about the morals of the thing later.

Then, however, there was a blur in one corner of the room, and, no surprise, there was Alex only a moment later.

"What's up, Ex?" Fred asked, calling Alex by the nickname he'd given him.

"Raven's got a surprise for us." Alex replied, taking no offense at the nickname, "She called me up while I was out getting the groceries... said it was urgent."

"Hmmm..." Fred grumbled, "Well, I ain't seen her all day. Maybe she'll..."

However, just then, Raven came through the front door, and closed it behind her with a smile, "Well, guys, I've got a... where the devil is Anna? Did she sneak out again?"

"I dunno." Fred commented, and Raven felt like hitting herself. She'd been so busy with preparations that she couldn't, of course, keep an eye on Anna Marie twenty-four seven, but she probably should have delegated that job to Alex. Still, it was hard to balance maintaining a household while providing for several people, and also managing plans for the ascension of mutants to power in the world.

"Ahm right here." Anna Marie said, putting down the book she'd been reading, and stepping forward from the next room.

"Oh. Good." Raven replied, looking a little relieved, "Well, now that you're all here, I have an announcement to make. Anna, you're going after Xavier again tomorrow night."

"What if that kid with the ah-beams throws himself on me?" Anna Marie asked, to which Raven replied, "Well, you're not going alone. You're going to have some backup, and we're finally going to get the chance to use the rest of those psychic disrupters we acquired. Anna, Fred, Alex... Come outside, and meet the rest of the brotherhood of mutants."

Then, the four powerful mutants did step outside, and Anna Marie grinned as she looked into the faces of her new comrades...

* * *

Scott had mentioned his intended destination to the others, as well as why he was planning on going there, but none of the other students really wanted to go with him. Bobby was practicing at making ice sculptures, Piotr felt the need to paint even more furiously than before, and Kurt... Kurt was private with his activities.

As for the girls, they'd also refused, although Ororo, and especially Jean weren't sure why. Jubilation had been vehement that they not follow Scott to the restaurant, although she didn't unveil the reason for that until a few minutes after Scott had left.

"Alright." Jubilation said, "If everyone here is done with gloom and doom patrol duty, I'm determined to make you have a good time."

As she said that, she pushed small leaflets into their hands; advertising a club which claimed to have "eats, atmosphere and all the music you can dance to."

"I'm going there tonight," Jubilation said, "and you're both coming with me."

"That's... uh... That's not my kind of place, really..." Jean insisted, but Jubilation wouldn't be brushed aside.

"Don't insult me by trying to refuse." she warned, "This is the last of the money I was saving from back home, before I have to find a way to get more, and I'm using it to show you two a good time. Let's not spoil that, okay?"

Hearing that, even Jean couldn't refuse, and although Ororo was a little disappointed that she'd have to walk like a normal person for the evening, she was at least a little curious about that "city life" that Jubilation was describing.

However, there was a figure close by, but unseen, who overheard their plans, and thought silently; "Lord, bless them tonight. Protect them and keep them free of evil."

* * *

Anna Marie had been sulking for most of the evening. At first, she'd been pleased to hear that the brotherhood of mutants was getting new members, which Raven had apparently found using her mutant-locating device, but then, Anna had learned that they were only coming over to Raven's place for introductions, and to make battle plans. Each had another place they were to go in the meantime, whether they wanted to be there or not. Fred was staying at the house, because he really didn't have anyplace else to go, and Alex... Well, Alex was sticking around because he didn't like the idea of leaving Raven unguarded for more than a few days. Not that Raven was helpless; she was an expert in all forms of armed and unarmed combat, but Alex was just that much better.

Anna had been hoping there would be more people around the house from that point on, because truthfully, it was a lonely place most of the time. Alex and Raven seemed to have no real desire to talk to her, and Fred was just kind of weird. He seemed to be, on the outside, bold and confident in himself, well past the point of arrogance, and yet, he locked up whenever he looked at Anna. Anna had a feeling that it was just that he was afraid of her, but it would have been foolhardy to ask him if that were true straight-out.

Of course, Fred was a very strange and powerful mutant as well. Something like seven feet tall, weighing (according to Anna's best estimate) about six hundred and fifty pounds, but Anna had been mostly isolated from others for much of her life, so those little physical traits barely registered with her. To her, he wasn't a giant, or a fat guy. To her he was Freddy Dukes. But he wanted her to call him Fred, and she was trying her best to remember to do that.

"Hey, where are you going, Anna?" Dukes asked as she passed his room in the hallway. She could hear him standing up as quietly as someone like him could, and putting down a pencil he'd been scribbling with.

"Out." Anna Marie replied, "It's not late enough to sleep, and ahm bored."

"Yeah, me too." Dukes admitted, "Can I come?"

Anna Marie thought about it for a few moments, and ran through all of their most recent interactions in her mind, particularly the close shave at the Xavier Institute, and Fred's timely rescue, plus the fact that he'd never tried to tear her down, or insult her, and so she'd come to consider him her ally.

"Alright." she said with a mischievous grin, "Y'all can be mah bodyguard."

* * *

The comment had clearly been intended as a joke, but Dukes seemed to take it seriously, standing off to one side behind Anna as the two headed up to the club they'd decided to go to. In general, it was a relatively tame little club, which meant no strippers, but there was plenty of music and wild dancing, and they served drinks too, which only made the dancing more wild and less controlled; something that Anna found disappointing until she spotted one boy who was dancing very well near the middle of the room, and slowly approached him.

"May ah have this dance, sugah?" she asked him with a wink.

"Sure," he replied, "if you can keep up."

"Nah." Anna said, "Ah think ahl do the dancing for tonight..."

Then, Anna pulled him slowly into a corner, and the kiss began. The boy didn't realize what was happening to him as his consciousness evaporated, and he fell to the floor, about five seconds after the kiss had begun. So long as nobody noticed the poor kid was in a coma, that meant Anna would have a couple hours to dance with the kid's fantastic talent before he woke up again. Fred watched from the side of the room, where he was munching on some of the free bread, and smiled every time Anna performed a more complex trick with her legs, feet and arms. Soon, all eyes were on her, as she began using her powers to alter the dance moves in subtle ways; hanging for a moment longer in mid-air than would be possible without the power of flight, spinning faster than any mortal could, and even once drawing a chair to her by controlling the air that surrounded it, but people always look for the simplest explanation for anything, and since no one had been watching the chair when it had flung itself toward her, they just supposed someone had tossed it to her. At last, after about thirty minutes, Anna Marie took a bow, and seated herself at the booth closest to where Fred was standing.

"Ya got people watching ya." Fred remarked.

"No kidding." Anna said, taking the glass of water that someone had offered her as soon as she sat down, "Pretty much the whole place was watching that."

"Naw." Fred said, shaking his head, "Xavier School-type people."

Then he nodded sharply in the direction of three girls who'd apparently entered while Anna had been dancing. They were named Ororo, Jubilation and Jean. Anna recognized them from the files that Raven had shown her. She knew the powers of Ororo were air-related, which meant she was no real threat, but she wasn't sure about the other two, and if Xavier himself had been around, it might have been big trouble, because neither Anna nor Fred had a psychic disrupter handy.

"Watch mah magic." Anna said with complete confidence as she stood up, finished the water, and put the glass down on the table, then wiped her mouth with the back of one arm, and turned to face the three X-School girls. She could see the fear in their eyes as she took one step towards them, and they all seemed to tense up, so smiling, she continued to walk in their direction, as they continued, for a few steps anyway, to back away from her. At last, Anna was only a short distance away from them, and looking at Jubilation, who was in the middle, and had the boldest look on her face, said "Y'all wanna take this outside, so we don't creep out the locals? We got some heavy stuff to yak about."

Then, Anna walked right past them towards the club exit, but Fred didn't move, and although Jubilation and her friends had no idea what powers, if any, the big guy had, they had no real desire to fight him, or anyone, in a club filled with people, so they did the only other thing they could, and followed Anna outside.

As soon as Anna was sure she was out of earshot of the club, she spun around to face the three girls and smiled.

"Imagine, all four of us winding up in the same club on the very same night! That one shocked me, but ah had a fun time anyway. How about you? Y'all having fun?"

"No." Jubilation replied honestly and quickly, "Not yet."

They were only about three yards from each other when they said these words, but it was still too close for Jean's liking. Anna's very presence was disturbing; looking for all the world like an ordinary girl, and mostly acting like one, and yet, she had single-handedly taken apart the avengers not too long ago. The very fact that such a massacre didn't seem to have changed her attitude at all was what disturbed Jean the most. Most kids her age would have been horrified to see death so close. That girl, it seemed, had been trained to cope with it before then.

"Well, ah know all your names, so ah may as well tell you mine." Anna said, "Y'all can call me Anna Marie, but don't bother looking it up in a phone book. Ahm not listed."

Ororo was very afraid for her life by that point. She'd been beaten with absurd ease by Anna in their last encounter, and as the only person there to have faced her before, was afraid that Anna would kill all three of them right there with her bare hands.

"Tomorrow night, ahm going after the professor again." Anna explained, "Ahm gonna have backup then, though, so if you want to stop me, you may as well do it now, while y'all've got me outnumbered."

"What about your friend back there?" Jubilation asked, gesturing to Dukes, who'd left the club to follow them, and was watching from one of the walls outside the place, which he was leaning against casually, as he'd done inside.

"He's not gonna step in." Anna said, "He's a spectator."

"So you want to fight us?" Jubilation asked, "Right now, just like that?"

"Nah." Anna replied, "But ahm gonna have to sooner or later. Ahd rather do it when ah can take y'all at once. It's tougher that way. More of a challenge."

Jubilation winced. Was it all a game to Anna? Was she challenging them all right there, like some video game geek turning up the difficulty to medium? The thought made Jubilation feel ill.

"Alright then!" Jubilation exclaimed, "If this is the only chance I get, I'm kicking your ass right here and now!"

With those words, Jubilation stretched out both hands, and a swirl of lights and colors shot out from them in a hundred tiny orbs, about the size of billiard balls, It was Jubilation's mutant power. She created bombs made of energy in various colors and light ranges, and fired them off through the air at whoever, or whatever she wanted. In that case, every last one was headed for Anna, and Anna wasn't really sure what they were at first, so as the bombs neared her position, she simply disappeared.

Suddenly, Anna was standing less than a foot from Jubilation's nose, still smiling in the friendliest way, as the energy bombs exploded behind her, sending concrete and tar flying in all directions.

"Oh." Anna said, turning back to survey the damage, "Oh, that's cute! They're like little bombs."

However, as she commented on that, Jubilation made a slightly larger bomb in one hand, and shoved it directly into Anna's stomach, then leapt back, as Ororo and Jean ducked out of the way. In only a moment, the bomb exploded, covering Anna in dust and smoke.

Still, a few seconds later, Anna zipped forth, out of the smoke cloud. She wasn't smiling anymore, mostly because her outfit had been ruined; a large, smoking hole where the bottom ten inches of her shirt had previously been.

"Oh, damn." Jubilation muttered as she saw that Anna had barely suffered even a slight bruise from the massive explosion she'd just caused, which was already drawing the attention of those inside the nearby buildings and clubs.

Anna was about to charge Jubilation with a punch to the stomach, however, when a voice distracted her.

"Vanquish first the weather witch. Her powers are the greatest, and the simplest to dispel. Give them no quarter, and victory shall surely be thine."

"Not now, Thor." Anna thought back, "This isn't a battle. Ahm just having a good time."

At that, the voice fell silent.

By that point, though, small chunks of masonry had begun to rise up into the air and pelt Anna from one side, and one had come distressingly close to her eyes, so she quickly raised one hand, and swatted the fast-moving chunks aside with her own impressive speed, before ducking out of range of that attack as well.

However, as Anna dodged that attack, she found herself confronted by another, that time a miniature cyclone being driven into her stomach, attached to Ororo's left fist, but it did only a little more damage to her shirt, and whipped her pants around. The force of the punch itself did next to nothing to her actual skin, and she grabbed the arm that had delivered it, and tossed its owner in the direction of her friends, where Jubilation had to stop several of her bombs in mid-air to avoid hitting Ororo.

Once the three were all together again, Anna decided to start attacking, although she pulled her punches carefully, as she knocked Jean and Ororo back with blows to the chest, and kicked Jubilation to the ground, both feet in mid-air, and free to pull off another kick if need be.

"W-what do we do?" Jean asked Ororo, quietly enough that Anna couldn't hear as they lay only inches from the wall of the closest building, and a crowd began to gather, watching them, "We can't... We're going to get killed at this rate."

"We need a better plan." Ororo replied, "Something like what we... like what the others and I used against Logan earlier. Jubilation's bombs definitely shake her, but they aren't doing much damage..."

"I read somewhere that bombs do damage by creating force in all directions." Jean replied, "That has to waste a lot of power..."

"You're right." Ororo noticed, thinking it over in her head. If each of Jubilation's bombs was equal to, or at least close to the power of Scott's blasts, that meant that she couldn't keep it up forever, but it also meant that if she could manage one more volley, she could really summon more penetrating force than anyone else there. The problem was in getting all that force to go in the right direction.

Quickly, Ororo used a powerful wind to sweep Jubilation towards herself and Jean as the skies above them darkened with storm clouds. They didn't have much time to pull it off, and they had even less time to explain their new strategy.

"I have a plan." Ororo said to the others, "You'll all need to do this if you can..."

In less than seven seconds more, Ororo had finished telling the others her plan, as flashes of lightning totally beyond her control could be seen overhead. Anna was still smiling brightly the whole time.

Jubilation had no idea what Ororo hoped to accomplish with her plan, but she'd been humbled more than once already by Anna, and she was willing to try just about anything to bring her down. Moving quickly, Jubilation fired off a volley of fifty or so energy bombs at Anna, who seemed like she was going to try to knock them aside with her hands, but at the last second, winds kicked up, and telekinetic power flowed forth from Jean Grey's mind, powered by all the will she could summon, and the bombs, once a loosely-aimed spread, had been shaped into a new configuration, that more closely resembled a funnel, each one headed towards the very same spot in the center of Anna's stomach.

Anna Marie tried to knock them aside with her hands as she'd originally planned, but they were packed too closely together, like glowing bubbles on a roll of bubble wrap. When she knocked one aside, another got through, and soon, the rapid, continual force of all that power, being focused onto the same spot on her body began to take its toll, and Anna Marie Darkholme felt real, physical pain for the first time since her fight with the Avengers. It wasn't a horrible, crippling pain, but it was definitely real. She remembered the feeling.

At last, Jubilation and Ororo began to weaken. Their attack came to a halt, and Anna also seemed to have weakened, since the storm clouds overhead had started to disappear. Jean didn't seem to be quite so tired, but if she had to keep fighting, it would mean bad news.

However, as the smoke around Anna cleared, it seemed that bad news was what they were getting. Anna's stomach was covered in bruises, and there was a trickle of blood coming out of a very small hole there, close to her naval. She was obviously feeling very uncomfortable, but she was still able to fight.

"Y'all gave it your best shot" Anna muttered, "and it was real good, but now it's mah turn, and..."

"No." Jean said, looking at her sternly, "Enough is enough."

Suddenly, Anna started to feel the discomfort in her stomach increase to nearly twice what it had been only moments before, and the anger on Jean's face grew.

"Earlier today, a friend of mine told me they didn't want me using my mutant powers to mess with their insides." Jean said as Anna's stomach pains grew worse, "What about you? Do you want that, Anna Marie?"

For a moment, Anna contemplated charging Jean, but it was only a passing thought. Jean was a psychic, and with her scrambler, Anna could have won for sure, but without it... It was too big of a gamble. So, feeling some regret over the decision, Anna sped over to Fred's position as fast as she could with the pain in her midsection, and muttered "Let's get outta here."

* * *

Soon, Anna and Fred were gone, well past the ability to see the girls, or even to hear them, and it was only then that they dared to get back up, nursing their bruises and cuts as the crowd that had gathered around them started to move away, as though concerned only with the damages that had been done.

"Strange." Ororo muttered in surprise, "I've never seen a crowd with such a short attention span before."

"They're bound to behave that way." they heard from all around them, "They don't remember any of you being responsible for the damages, which is fortunate, for your sake."

Jean was the first to recognize who it was that was speaking to them, and felt very worried.

"Professor?" she asked, "Are we going to..."

"Jean, it's alright now." Xavier replied into her thoughts, "The important thing, at the moment, is that you're all safe. Logan is coming to pick you up in the car, and I expect you'll all come back without a hassle."

Jubilation frowned deeply when she heard that, but Ororo and Jean both replied in their thoughts, rather sadly "Yes, professor."

* * *

"I gotta say," Jubilation said as they passed through the front door of the Xavier Institute, "it sure woulda made the fight a whole lot easier if you'd just done that crazy stomach-messing thing from the start, Jean."

When she heard that, however, Jean looked a little shy, and said, "Well, the truth is... I'm really not that strong yet."

"What?" Ororo asked, "You mean you couldn't actually have hurt her?"

"Well, I was making her pretty uncomfortable, I think." Jean replied, "But no... I... Well, I don't think I could really have done much damage to her at the time."

"So it was a lie?" Jubilation asked, "Man, we coulda died! What would've happened if she'd called your bluff?"

"The three of you would be dead by now." Xavier replied from across the hall, "I think you'll find that when someone powerful is seeking to kill you, it is often best to err on the side of caution."

"What do you want, anyway, Professor?" Jubilation asked, still very much irritated at having missed out on a fun night out with her new friends.

"For the moment, I want to talk to the three of you in private." Xavier said, backing into his study to encourage them to join him. Jean was the last one through, and she closed the door quietly, as glowing, golden eyes watched the proceedings, then closed tightly in gratitude.

"Danke." Kurt said, "You grant mercy to sinners, and have given to me what I asked, and more. They are safe, and free of evil. I will not forget your goodness."

Then Kurt vanished from that hallway ceiling in a puff of smoke, to return to his room, as throughout the hallway, and the study, and most of the other adjoining rooms, Jubilation's voice was heard, shouting "WHAT?"

* * *

End


	3. X Institute 3: Pain Long Awaited

The Xavier Institute Neo

Issue 3

"Pain Long Awaited"

* * *

The Training Chamber was a fairly small place; about fifteen yards in any given direction, and made almost totally of metal. It had been an infirmary storage room a few days before, but Logan had started cleaning it out as soon as he'd heard that he was going to be teaching mutant kids, and it had paid off. The place was just about the only section of campus that had shielding sufficient to block out the noise, heat or cold from any mutant power being used inside, since the storage chamber had been expected to contain some sensitive chemicals, and Logan's last project had been to rig up a large padding apparatus against one of the walls, using part of the leftover metal from the mansion's construction, and three very large punching bags from the gym. It was a budget job, but it was all he could manage.

Scott Summers was in the gym with Piotr, and both were using their mutant powers. Scott's power beams were wearing away at the metal on the punching bags as he used them, and eventually, Logan had to enter the chamber and tell him to stop. He seemed to take it well, though.

"This ain't gonna work." Logan said as he returned to outer chamber, shaking his hairy head sadly. From that chamber, the training could be watched through a small and very breakable window. It, like everything there, was inconvenient and budget-conscious, but how could it be otherwise?

"I don't know what you thought mutants were when you started up this whole school idea, Chuck," Logan said as he approached Xavier, who was watching through the window, "but they're gonna need something better'n this to really master their powers with."

"Part of me thought it might be just a matter of learning to suppress mutant powers at certain times." Xavier admitted sadly, "Combat schooling didn't dominate my thoughts during the design stages of this institute."

"I'm just telling you how it lies." Logan replied, "If these kids don't get something a little better'n this pretty soon to work with, I wouldn't be too surprised if this whole mansion exploded."

Xavier had a sad look in his eyes as he watched Scott continuing to pummel the punching bags in the room, and Piotr sitting on the floor in his metal form, the luster of his metal skin changing as they watched.

"It seems useless to you, don't it, Chuck?" Logan asked, looking through the window from behind Xavier a moment later.

"All of this does indeed seem rather academic to me, yes." Xavier replied, not turning to look at Logan, "None of them are going to benefit from anymore training after today."

"What're you talking about, Chuck?" Logan asked, puzzled, "I'll still be here."

"It's Anna Marie." Xavier said with a wry look on his face, "The young woman who attacked the mansion, and the other girls at that club they went to. When they met her last night, she told them that tonight, she was coming for me, and bringing reinforcements."

"So?" Logan asked.

"Logan, someone has targeted me." Xavier replied, finally turning to look at him with terrible sadness on his face, "I am on someone's hit list. This is a very serious matter, and I can't afford to endanger these children because of that, no matter what their actions of the past have been. I've given it a great deal of thought recently, but there's only one decision to be made. I'm dissolving the Institute."

"Idiot." Logan replied, turning away from him, "If you do that, you're a dead man. You know that, right?"

"If it will preserve the others from danger, then so be it."

"Maybe it won't. Maybe Anna's already found the students frustrating enough, that the first thing she'll do with your powers is shut their minds down. Ever think of that?"

"Or maybe she won't. Maybe she'll be merciful."

"I don't believe this!" Logan exclaimed furiously; an animal-like snarl on his lips, "Are you trying to tell me you think you can trust Anna with your powers? You barely even trust yourself, Chuck!"

"There is a chance that I might be able to reason with her." Xavier objected hesitantly.

"No, Chuck. There ain't." Logan replied angrily, "She's working for somebody else, remember? Last night's fiasco proved that to me. Now, we don't even know who this commander is, or why Anna's obeying him, but it's gotta be a big, powerful reason to keep a loose cannon like her on board, and you can't compete with that!"

"Still, if she could be convinced that the children are not a genuine threat to her..."

Logan pounded one fist against the wall with a metallic clang, letting out a genuine snarl that sounded very much like that of a bobcat.

"What do I have to DO" he roared, "to get you to think about yourself? She's enough of a terror as it is, Chuck! The cops can't handle her, the military can't handle her, she single-handedly took apart the Avengers, and now you want to give her the power to control people's thoughts, just because it might save a few kids some misery! That ain't noble, Chuck! That's armageddon in a box!"

"What else would you have me do?" Xavier asked, sadness lining every word.

"Tell these kids the truth. All of it. Tell them about your dream. Tell them about what you want to accomplish in the world. Then, tell them about the threat they're facing and ask them if they're willing to put their lives on the line to protect the world from your powers. Give them the chance to make that choice, Chuck. It's their lives they'd be risking. Don't try to tell them they can't."

Then Logan stormed off into the upstairs hallways, leaving Xavier with much to consider. He was eventually grateful when Henry Mccoy appeared with lab results on Piotr's physiology.

"You wanted to see these, Professor Xavier." Henry said, handing him the papers, "This is everything. Transformed state details, capabilities and so forth. Even the transformation process info."

Xavier looked at the papers briefly, then back at Piotr Rasputin, who was still sitting in the chamber beyond, refining the sheen of his armor.

"Amazing." Xavier said as he looked over the findings, "When he transforms, his total mass must increase several dozen times."

"It can." Henry replied, "You see, Piotr's abilities aren't just a matter of one transformation against another. He projects his territory over his entire body, and channels his x-force into it. The more x-force he applies to the task, the more mass he can create. He can seemingly use this ability to increase his mass, density, durability, strength, and even his size."

"His size?" Xavier asked, astounded, "My word. How much larger can be become?"

"Well, I've personally never seen him grow by more than a foot and a half, but that may just be because his X-force is undeveloped, unlike yours, for instance. With time and training, he might be able to become a real colossus." Henry replied somewhat grimly.

"In other words..." Xavier reasoned slowly, "He could become strong enough to take the blow that nearly tore him apart a few days ago."

Henry hesitated a moment before giving the professor a sharp nod.

* * *

"Coward! Damn indecisive coward!" Jubilation exclaimed as she tore a poster down from her wall, "Just like all the others!"

"How was your night on the town?" Kurt asked from the shadows at the floor near the window, causing Jubilation to shriek in alarm, then she turned on him, exclaiming "Don't do that! It's creepy!"

"My apologies." Kurt replied with a short bow of his head, "Do you not wish to be disturbed?"

Jubilation didn't answer his question. Instead, she said "Cueball says he's closing the school just because of what happened last night."

"Anna's attack upon you." Kurt replied, drawing a look of surprise from Jubilation, so he gestured to his large, pointed ears, saying, "I hear many things others do not."

"Anyways, she says she's coming back for the Professor tonight, and he wants us all to leave. He's being an idiot. I want to fight her again. I know I hurt her last time, and if I could just... I mean, with Scott and Piotr there too, I know we could win."

"Perhaps," Kurt remarked, "but Professor Xavier is no coward. He merely wants what is best for us."

"No he doesn't!" Jubilation exclaimed just as furiously as ever, "Dammit, no he doesn't! If he did, he wouldn't be trying to send me 'home!' Do you have any idea what life was like back in my hometown? I never even set foot in my own house if I could help it. I lived on the streets most of the time. I was the tough girl the others all avoided. I didn't have any friends, or a lot of money, or much to do. Sometimes, life got real hard like that. Here... Well, it's the first place I've ever been where people just accept me for being weird."

"Yes." Kurt replied, "To lose that would be a horrifying prospect. I merely ask you not to judge Professor Xavier too harshly until you have considered his reasoning..."

"When somebody's making big choices about your life and telling you what to do," Jubilation replied, opening the door, "you try not judging them, and see how easy it is."

Then Jubilation left her room in a huff, and Kurt closed both eyes tightly as he contemplated her last words.

"Indeed." he muttered aloud to himself, "Few things in life are harder to do."

Then he was gone again, in a puff of smoke.

* * *

As Jubilation charged downstairs into the main hall in a hurry, however, she had to stop short to keep from colliding with someone she'd never seen before; someone with long, blond hair which hung over her ears, bright red lips, deep blue eyes and a bright, upbeat smile. She was dressed in a tan suit, and wearing a pair of large spectacles over her eyes, but they did very little to disguise the fact that she was, bar none, the most beautiful woman that Jubilation had ever seen, so in addition to her frustrations over being asked to pack her bags and go home, a deep, uncontrollable envy filled her as well, as the woman turned her indelible smile in Jubilation's direction.

"Jubilation, right? Right. Good. I've got your name down. You're one of the primarily-English speakers."

"It's all I speak." Jubilation assured her, still envious, but suddenly curious as well.

"My name is Doctor Sheila Ramsey. I'm going to be your professor of language." she said, holding out her hand for Jubilation to shake, but she just ignored it.

"No you're not. Doctor X says he's gonna close the school."

"What?" Sheila asked, horrified, "He can't do that!"

"I can indeed." came the Professor's voice into her thoughts, as Jubilation, having apparently not heard the telepathic message, said, "Well, maybe you ought to tell him that."

"What's this about, Charles?" Doctor Ramsey asked silently with her own thoughts, "I thought you wanted this thing to work!"

"I care too much about the students, and about you." Xavier replied, "There's terrible danger to anyone who stays here."

Then, in a flash, Xavier gave to Sheila telepathically all the knowledge of what had happened since they'd met last, and she understood what he was saying. She still didn't agree, however.

"You can't close the school just because of that!" she exclaimed, "I have friends in the mutant community. So do you. What about this other guy who's been fighting for mutant rights over in Asia recently, this... I forget what they called him, but I'll bet he could help."

"It might take him days to get here." Xavier replied sadly, "The attack begins tonight."

"I still don't agree with your decision, Charles." Sheila replied.

"Yes, I'm sorry you had to come all the way here for noth..."

"That's not what I mean. Do you remember your history, Charles? In ancient times, when Homo Sapiens were first struggling to survive in the world, facing predators that were larger, stronger and faster, and having to stay by the rivers and lakes, in order to survive, do you know how they first started trapping food to eat?"

"Yes." Xavier replied sadly, "I know."

"They worked together as a team, Charles, and they used tools. One would scare prey towards the others, who would hunt it down with their spears. That was how they survived. You're facing a similar situation, and from the looks of things, you're up against an enemy several times more powerful than anyone on these grounds, so use every weapon and technique at your disposal, and work as a team. Otherwise, you'll just die like a Neanderthal trying to outrun a rabbit or a deer."

Then, feeling she'd made her point, Sheila took her things upstairs, leaving Xavier to his own thoughts.

* * *

Occasionally, Scott Summers had a hard time determining when to stop his workout, but on that day, it became obvious very quickly, since the metal that lined the punching bags wore down on his knuckles after only about fifteen minutes. When that happened, he left the training room, and started to watch Piotr's unique kind of workout. He didn't seem to be moving, of course, but every moment he spent in metal form drained more of his mutant power, and the correct kind of training, for him, was simply to use his mutant powers until they were drained almost completely, then recover and do the whole thing all over again.

"When you can spend all day in metal form without feeling the least bit tired," Logan had told him, "the first phase of your training is gonna be over."

Scott looked at Piotr for about a minute and a half, watching the sheen of his metal skin change as he focused on making it stronger and stronger, when he noticed that Doctor Mccoy had also been watching. Scott hadn't noticed him before, since Henry had actually been on the ceiling of the room, and most people didn't check the ceiling for occupants when they entered a room, but Scott knew he had to say something.

"I know what the Professor's planning to do." Scott said, "I think it's a mistake. He shouldn't push me away like that."

Mccoy landed on the floor and spoke again, saying, "Oh, I don't think Professor Xavier really wants you to leave, Scott. He's just concerned about you, and everyone else."

"I'd stay and protect him, just like I did the first time." Scott replied without hesitation, "It's weird, but it's like... It's like after all he's done for me... Teaching me about my powers, giving me a place to practice with them; even giving me the means to control them..."

Scott fingered the edge of his ruby-red glasses as he said that. They were the only thing that could deactivate his mutant power to fire intense force blasts from his eyes, and so, they allowed him to live a semblance of a normal life. Without them, he would never have been able to get close to anyone.

"You feel you owe him something." Mccoy guessed.

"No. It's not really like a debt... I feel like if he wasn't so much older than me... We could be friends." Scott said sadly, "I see him, and I think 'I have to do everything I can to be a good friend to him.' That's what I think. Ever since my mutant powers manifested, I've been drawing joy from continually testing my own limits, watching the punching bags tremble, the tracks pound, and the sweat shine in the gym lights, or the sun. It's a joy to me, and I wouldn't have any joy without him, and all he's done for me."

Then Scott looked directly at Mccoy, and said "Whatever else happens, he's done too much for me to push me away now. I'm dedicated to Professor Xavier, and I know he has something that he's dedicated to. Until I find out what that is, I'm going to keep protecting him, even if it means risking my life."

Then without even a hint of a smile, Scott went back upstairs, leaving Mccoy to think about what had just been said.

* * *

As the day continued, there weren't any more classes, but soon, all the students knew what the professor had planned, though most of them showed no signs of actually leaving the premises. Many were still deciding what the best course of action was. Aside from Scott, however, there was one other student who absolutely refused to vacate, and at about 3:12 in the afternoon, he was approached by Logan, and the two of them started discussing tactics. Piotr had faced Anna, and he knew of her terrifying power, but he wasn't about to back down, and when the time came, Scott wouldn't either. Logan had approached most of the others, but of them, only Bobby was determined to help, and he seemed to think he was invincible most of the time, so Logan wasn't completely sure he could be trusted. Still, four fighters were better than nothing.

By four o'clock, the four of them had met in the library and were discussing plans for using the group's combined strength to its best advantage, although in Logan's mind, there was really only one thing that mattered.

"If they've got anybody stronger than Anna, we don't have a prayer." he said, "Our objective ought to be trying to find a vulnerability. Piotr and I can fight with her for a little, just to distract her, but I don't really think we can win. Bobby, if you've been practicing with that ice-making thing you do, you could probably distract anybody with that. Scott, you're our real weapon. I need you to look for an opening and try to get her right in one of the eyes or something. Try to find a weakness. Any kind of weakness at all, but don't move in until she's distracted, or she'll see it coming and..."

"Logan!" the voice intruded into his head, as he was in the middle of a sentence, and he replied silently, without letting any of the others know what he was saying telepathically.

"What, Charlie? I'm busy."

"Logan, you should not be doing this. I told you..."

"You told me that I was to use any means, short of seriously injuring them, to help these children defend themselves. Well, they ain't injured yet, are they?"

"Logan, that isn't..."

"Don't go changing your mind on me now, Chuck. Just sit tight and let me do my job."

At another time, Xavier would have responded to that swiftly, and with clarity, but he had too much on his mind to argue with Logan properly, and in a moment more, he'd fallen silent, and Logan continued with his plans.

* * *

Late in the evening, three figures spoke together in person, in the woods just outside the Institute. The others were still in contact with them by radio transmission. Anyone could have picked it up if they'd been trying, but Anna was entirely confident that they'd succeed.

"Are the others in position?" Alex asked, putting on his mask.

"Yeah." Fred replied. For the moment, he was the one with the radio.

"Doesn't mattah anyway." Anna said, "Theah just distractions. Let's do this."

Fred frowned sadly as he watched Anna speak. It was her tendency to view things only in terms of their power... He had to admit it upset him sometimes. He himself was very powerful, but he didn't like the idea of Anna dismissing other, less powerful mutants as being useless to her. With humans, it was one thing. They were only human, so they were a lesser sort of person, but it seemed right that mutants should have a kind of camaraderie with one another. Fred liked the idea of being part of a group. It was the best thing he'd ever had going for him, and the chance to be able to rely on others for backup felt great to him. Anna, though, seemed to feel differently, which made Fred sort of sad. Still, none of that really mattered. They had a duty to perform, and that meant that once again, Fred could justify his sadness with a higher cause.

"They're all ready." Fred said.

"Signal time." Anna replied with a smile, as sparks started to fly from her tightly-clenched fists, and she gestured into the night sky. In only a moment more, the stars began, to Fred's eyes, to vanish from the sky, but it was only an illusion. The stars were still up there; it was just that Fred's view of them was being obstructed by dark storm clouds that were gathering, and in an instant before they parted again, a massive thunderclap was heard from the sky for miles around, and Anna smiled as she watched the clouds return to their original places. As soon as Saint John did his part, it would be time for her to strike...

* * *

St. John Allerdyce fingered the bit of wood he held in one hand. It wasn't very big; no more than the size of a match, but there were woods all around as well, and much of the mansion's construction was wood. If that worked, he'd soon have a nice blaze going.

Allerdyce shuddered once as he heard the thunderclap, but he knew it was his cue to act. Tossing the wood clip forward towards the school, he smiled as it burst into flames. That would definitely disrupt a few things.

* * *

Kurt Wagner was in one of the back classrooms of the institute when he saw the bright flames headed towards him, and disappeared just in time to avoid being burnt to ash as a wall of fire hit the mansion from behind, gutting several of the back classrooms and incinerating chairs, tables and books. Kurt was lucky to have not reappeared inside the school, but he could see that there was a person still inside, standing in the middle of the fire. That person seemed to be alright, however, whoever she was, and she dashed into the undamaged sections of the school in only a moment, but Kurt soon found that he had his hands full. Two figures were approaching the mansion from the woods behind it, and one of them seemed to be holding a ball of fire in one hand. Obviously, they were Anna's reinforcements, and Kurt was afraid, though not really because he was worried about dying. Losing his place in Xavier's school meant a great deal more to him, regardless of his words to Jubilation earlier in the morning. The figure holding the fireball was tall with blond hair, wearing a red shirt and brown pants. The other was shorter, with brown hair, a black pair of jeans, and a navy blue t-shirt.

"Are you responsible for this?" Kurt asked angrily. The one with the fireball just nodded in reply, however.

"Be gone from here!" Kurt exclaimed, "Both of you! Do not force me to strike you down!"

Allerdyce's smile seemed to broaden, as the fireball in his hand rose into the air, and divided into a hundred small balls of flame, which then shot towards Kurt en masse, and there was no way he could have dodged them all. Instead, Kurt teleported again, then struck the fire-wielder with a kick to the head from behind, the moment he came out of teleportation, but although he'd gotten a good lick in, he quickly found something long and slimy gripping his wrists, and in moments, he was flying through the air into the woods.

The flame-user continued towards the mansion, sending small fireballs into various sections of the house before Kurt was on top of him again, using a piece of a metal pipe as a club, and struck him in the legs. Allerdyce screamed and collapsed, while his companion, who liked to call himself Morty, was also caught off-guard for a moment, but reacted with his tongue as soon as Allerdyce fell to the ground. Morty's tongue extended from his mouth, like a long, snake-like appendage, waving towards Kurt in an attempt to ensnare him as it had before, but Kurt's tail whipped out at it in response, knocking it to one side as he brought the pipe down on Allerdyce's head, rendering him unconscious.

As Kurt and Morty glared at one another angrily in the light of the blaze that had consumed part of the mansion, winds began to pick up from inside the building, starting to extinguish the fires. On some level, Kurt knew that meant that Ororo was doing her part to try to undo the damage, but he was too focused on his remaining enemy to pay it much heed. Kurt's only real experiences with advanced combat tactics had been under Logan over the past few days, but he could see that the person in front of him was trained to watch their opponent carefully, looking for signs of weakness. Whenever Kurt took a step in one direction, so did his enemy. Whenever Kurt crouched on all fours, his opponent did the same thing.

Soon, however, Morty decided that Kurt was wasting his time, and taking a deep breath, blew a gust of wind at Kurt that knocked him off his feet. However, Kurt quickly adapted to the situation, teleporting behind his opponent, and using his momentum to land on his back from behind, then bringing his pipe down towards Morty's head. Morty, however, responded to the attack by leaping upward before it could connect, throwing Kurt off guard. He was leaping an absolutely huge distance through the air, firing what looked like some kind of green venom from his mouth as he did so. Kurt wasn't sure what the venom would do if it made contact with his skin, but he had no desire to find out. Quickly leaping back and forth, in between the venom blasts, Kurt followed Morty, watching him closely until he saw an opening and teleported.

Morty was caught completely by surprise. He'd never expected Kurt to teleport to him while he was that high up in the air, but Kurt had appeared just above Morty, and struck him across the face with the pipe, which was being held in his tail. Soon, Morty fell to the ground, unconscious, and Kurt had to grab a few tree branches to save himself from the same fate.

The experience hadn't been entirely horrible, however. Though Kurt disliked having to hurt anything, he found it thrilling that he'd managed to improve so much over such a short amount of time training with Logan, and the pipe in his hand felt right somehow... He couldn't explain it.

However, suddenly, a blast of wind struck the branch he was sitting on, and he had to scramble to make it to the ground safely. Clearly, there was someone else there.

Kurt looked around for other mutant invaders upon reaching the ground, but it took him a few seconds to spot the other one. She wasn't the same figure he'd seen in the flames, but that mutant was definitely a woman with short, brown hair and deep black eyes. Still, Kurt faced her boldly, recognizing her as another potential enemy, and was surprised when she walked right past him, grabbed Allerdyce, and threw him over one shoulder. Then she took Morty by the arm and dragged him along with her as well. Kurt was impressed by her strength, considering she didn't look like she should have been able to manage carrying more than a few dozen pounds. Still, Kurt had already decided that he wouldn't attack her if she didn't make a move first, and it saved him another fight as she took the two wounded mutants into the woods, and was gone. Kurt was glad to have been spared a fight, but it worried him, in some ways, what had happened. His knowledge of military tactics wasn't ironclad, simply because he wasn't really interested in fighting, but he was pretty sure he was witnessing a retreat, which seemed odd, since neither Anna nor the man in the dark suit had made an appearance yet. Kurt couldn't help but feel that in the end, his victory there meant very little.

* * *

Logan had sniffed the air as soon as he'd heard the explosion, waving to Bobby, Scott and Piotr to stay where they were, and noticing the scents of those all around the mansion. Fire from the back. No surprise there. Four invaders, but Kurt and Ororo were there too, and none of them were Anna. She was the one that mattered; her and that other guy.

The real problems were approaching the mansion from the other side. Anna was there, and the other guy Logan had fought before, and one other. Logan wasn't sure if there was a definite way to stop all seven, but for the time being, he was going to proceed under the hope that taking Anna apart would disturb the others enough to send them running, so the best course of action lay in moving away from the fire.

"Follow me." Logan said, leading the three confused teenagers away from the most noticeable attack upon the mansion, and towards the front entrance, where he flung open the doors and led them outside. There, Logan saw the real threats to the Professor, all of them equipped with psychic scramblers, and all of them looking very tough. Logan could tell which one was Anna instantly, as the only woman in the group, and he also recognized the man in the dark outfit. The third one he'd never seen before, but he would have been hard to miss, as he was absolutely huge in every sense of the word; tall, wide and intimidating. He didn't really seem that much older than Anna herself, however. There was just a look to his face, as if he were still just barely out of high school.

Logan's mind immediately began racing, trying to find advantages, but as soon as he stepped off the stairs of the institute, he felt a gloved hand come to rest on one shoulder, tightening around his shoulder blade, and sending small electric shocks through him. They weren't enough to injure him, but they weren't pleasant either, and he knew there wasn't really anything he could do to stop Anna by himself. She was simply too fast; much faster than he was. Piotr probably could have gotten a couple of punches in, but wasn't sure where to hit that looked vulnerable, and Scott himself was still looking for a weak point, so it was Bobby who moved first, causing jagged edges of ice to rise up from the stone at Anna's feet, vaulting her into the air, where she hurried to right herself, and saw Bobby covering himself in snow again, surrounded by long, twisting lengths of ice that surrounded him like a dozen pretzels.

"The kid's got a good defense," Anna thought silently, "but it's still just ice. It can't be that strong."

Piotr, meanwhile, had transformed into his metal form, and was attacking the other two invaders as Scott covered him from behind, and Logan, freed of Anna's grip, rushed forward to try to help as well. None of them seem to be doing any damage to the big guy, but Piotr's impressive size and metallic constitution seemed to have put the dark-clad fighter on the defensive. However, even while he was on the defensive, he was still looking for vulnerabilities, and began increasing the heat surrounding his icy enemy, who in turn, was trying to use his own mutant powers to lower the temperature of the surrounding environment. As Scott pelted Fred futily with his optic blasts, and Logan and Piotr double-teamed Alex, Bobby seemed to just be getting in the way of whichever enemy he could, just to be a pest, and Anna floated in the air above them all, wondering, with something approaching eager delight, where to start.

* * *

Henry Mccoy looked up from the book he was reading the moment the flames struck the mansion, and knew precisely what the fire meant. Quickly, he dropped the book and leapt into the hallway, adhering to one of the walls as he moved. He could smell the flames quite easily by that point, but as he moved closer, he sensed something else. Someone was moving sideways through the smoking hallway parallel to him; a woman. She'd come out of the flames and was moving... almost crawling like a beast. Trying not to be seen... However, the closer she crawled, and the better that Professor Mccoy could see her, the less he relished the concept of fighting her. Like himself, she barely even looked human at all, but that was because her hands, feet, shoulders, and the back of her head bore a great deal of resemblance to long, multi-edged scything blades. Mccoy remained perfectly still until she saw him, then headed in his direction, her claws outstretched, clearly intending to skewer him, so he leapt sideways, and rolled to the floor, getting only a minor scratch in retaliation. Still, it was enough to assure him that the bizarre mutant's intentions were not of a friendly sort, and he soon began planning out an attack strategy.

"I'm sure in this case, hesitating to shake hands with someone else is prudent and forgivable." Henry said as he placed a nearby vase on the floor, and picked up the table underneath it, "Also, your behavior has been, so far, most appalling, so I simply must ask you to leave. If you do not, I'm afraid I..."

The moment he said that, however, the mutant girl lunged forward, and Henry vaulted right over her head in response, throwing the table at her from behind, where it divided cleanly into a hundred smaller pieces of wood upon making contact with the long blades protruding from the back of her head.

"Incredible." Mccoy remarked, not sure whether to long for the chance to study such a perplexing mutant power, or to wish Ororo had been there to back him up. As the girl charged him again, however, slicing a large chunk out of the nearest wall with her claws, Mccoy knew his first objective had to be self-defense, which meant he needed a brilliant plan, or at least some kind of effective weapon.

That was when Henry remembered a machine he had in his med lab that might have been helpful, and rushed for the stairs, leaping over another clawing jab by his opponent, and running downward along the stairwell walls, sure that his enemy was following him close behind.

As soon as Henry got downstairs, he looked around for the machine he'd remembered, which might afford him a chance for victory, even against a person invulnerable to mere physical blows. Just in time, Mccoy was able to locate the magnetic bone knitter in one corner of the med lab, and wrenched open the metal plate on one side. It was a silvery machine, about the size of a baseball bat, attached to a computer monitor, and it would have been too heavy to use as a portable weapon for a human, but all Mccoy had to do was set up a few circuits in a different order, and the device, used for magnetically attracting bones to one another, could also be used to repel physical matter with a beam of magnetic force. It was dangerous, of course, but it was all he had, so as soon as the sharp-edged girl came barreling down the stairs, Mccoy fitted the last chip into place, and aimed the machine, then fired without even having enough time to close the plate on it's side.

* * *

The girl might have been in some pain as she flew upward, out of the Xavier Mansion, but it was hard to tell with that hard, sharp hide of hers. Still, if nothing else, the blast of magnetic force had swept her far away from the mansion, and done a considerable amount of damage to the building in the process. None of those fighting in the front of the mansion by that point could have failed to notice it, though Logan in particular remained focused on his own enemies, and after being distracted for only a few moments, Anna felt the warrior's instincts of Thor guiding her onward, and dove forward through the air, ready to pound the first person who got in her way.

That person, as it turned out, was Bobby again, rising up to meet her on pillars of ice, forming them in mid-air, and stepping onto one, then the next as Anna drew closer. In a moment, however, a shadow fell over her, and when she looked up to see what was casting it, a twelve-foot wide boulder made of ice collided with her from above, slamming her into the ground below.

Slowly, Bobby slid to the ground on a slide made of ice, and watched the boulder with some curiosity, eventually saying aloud, "That's weird. I though she was supposed to be unbeatable or something."

Just then, however, the ice boulder started trembling, then cracking, and Anna burst upward, right through the ice, forcing Scott and Alex to take cover, as shards of ice flew through the air in all directions. Logan got a cut or two in his skin from the flying shards, but they vanished almost at once, and even Bobby had to cover his face with his arms, as Anna appeared before him with horrifying speed, and swept her own arm across his hip in a swift, but relatively gentle motion, hurling him into the air and across the grounds, where only the packed snow around him kept him from being mortally injured by the impact, though he did lose consciousness in mid-air.

Anna was just about to turn and attack the others when a barrage of books and small pieces of debris assailed her from the mansion, joined not long afterward by an assault of well-aimed energy bombs. Anna barely felt the attacks, but she could see where they were coming from, and angrily brought one hand down in a chopping motion.

Jean and Jubilation had to run out into the hallway to keep from being electrocuted by the enormous bolt of lightning that tore apart the rooms they'd just been in, setting fire to a great many things. For the next several minutes, at least, there was no way they could help their friends, and a fraction of a second was all Anna needed to grab Piotr and punch him in the side, sending him flying through the air to land on the grass not far off. The dent in his metallic skin was definitely there, as it had been before, but Anna saw, to her chagrin, that it was also a lot smaller than it had been the first time. In fact, there had been almost no damage to his organs, although Piotr could feel that at least one of his ribs was cracked.

"I mustn't die now." he whispered to himself through the pain, "I need more training... Just a little more..."

But Anna had seen how much stronger Piotr had grown since their last encounter. She'd noticed the difference, and she wasn't going to take any chances with him. If there was even a chance he could one day become stronger than her, that meant that she had to take him quickly.

Anna was just about to run at Piotr and finish him off, however, when Scott saw his opening and fired his beams directly from his own eyes, and into Anna's.

Anna stopped her forward motion instantly, and fell to the ground as Scott's beam stopped firing, and for a moment, no one on either side of the conflict moved. Xavier, who watched the proceedings through the minds of his students, was afraid, partly that Scott had killed someone, and partly, he was almost ashamed to admit, that he had not.

But fear of two opposing things always brings disappointment, and in only a moment more, Anna's arms moved to brace themselves against the ground, and she got up, both eyes perfectly intact, and an eager smile on her face.

"Thanks." she said to Scott as his legs started to tremble in fear, "Up until today, ah wasn't sure whether my ahs were invulnerable or not."

Despite his fear, Scott held his ground and prepared another blast, but Anna had fought with Scott twice, and both times, he'd been helpless against her. He had, however, defeated her once, when she'd been at her full power, something that no one else had ever done, and even though his latest attack had given her greater knowledge of her powers, she couldn't just let that slide.

Almost instantly, her gloved hand was around his neck, and she was floating upward, carrying him with her. Further up they drifted; higher and higher, into the clouds, until at last, all the buildings, the trees and the other fighters were specks down beneath them, and Scott was starting to lose consciousness from a combination of the tight grip on his throat, and the thin atmosphere that surrounded him.

"No you don't." Anna replied, grabbing him under the arms in both hands, as he began to recover slightly, but not enough to move, and barely enough to even speak, "Ah want y'all to be conscious when you die. You're a pitiful enemy, but you deserve that much."

"You... pity me?" Scott asked, forcing out a short, gasping laugh a moment later. Anna was confused by that.

"What are you laughing at?" Anna asked, "You're gonna be dead in a minute!"

"I guess it's just a little funny." Scott said, "This whole time, it's you I've been... pitying. Not just because... Because I thought I had to kill you... I know who you are... What you've done... You've killed and killed and... enjoyed it... You can work with others for a while, but there's... no way a person like you... could have any real... friends. You don't even know what you're... missing..."

"You shut your trap!" Anna exclaimed, raising Scott into the air over her head by one hand again, making ready to throw him right to the ground, but that was when Scott saw another opening.

"I am going to die." he realized as he removed his glasses once more, "But at least she'll fail."

Then Scott's beam narrowed into a thin burst, shattering the metal device behind Anna Marie Darkholm's left ear.

* * *

Anna Marie couldn't see. She couldn't hear, smell, or even move. All she knew was that she was surrounded by darkness.

"Where am ah?" she screamed, but she couldn't even hear the sound of her own voice, so thick was the darkness that surrounded her.

"You are in the same place as always." a calm voice said, seeming to come from the darkness all around her, "Within your own mind. It is from here that you plan every move you make, and the darkness that surrounds you is your heart."

"It's nawt real!" Anna thought to herself angrily as she tried to look around; find something to get a grip on, or recognize, or see, "You're trying to tell me you think ahm evil, just like everybody else."

"The darkness here is not evil." the voice replied, "It is a screen you use to conceal yourself from your true feelings. I wonder what would happen if I were to draw it back..."

For a moment, Anna thought she saw an image of a bald man in a good suit waving his hands through the darkness. Then the darkness was gone, and the facade of Anna's life fell away, revealing the truth within her own mind; a truth she'd been trying to hide for so long... Thoughts she'd pushed away because they were thoughts of guilt and penitence and sorrow reappeared again; feelings she hadn't wanted to feel forcing their way in through the gap left by the missing screen of darkness. Anna watched those feelings impose upon her again and again, but could do nothing to prevent it, and soon, shed a single, bitter tear from the pain of it all.

"This is your pain." the voice in the darkness said, "It's the thing you've disguised for so long beneath cocky arrogance and narcissism, but there is one thing more you must see, and that is the pain of others! Feel the pain that you have caused!"

Then, in that moment, Anna screamed, her voice traveling on the winds as she saw visions of men and women weeping at funerals, witnessed through their own eyes the people that Janet Van Dyne and Henry Pym had been. Anna felt firsthand the regret of one relative that his last conversation with Henry had been an argument, the wonderful times one woman had had with Janet, which were only a memory from then on... the regret of one man in particular, who to that very day, blamed himself for leading the Avengers into such an obvious trap, and from one hundred angles, through one hundred pairs of eyes, Anna watched that man, dressed in his typical uniform of red, white and blue, speaking at the wake of those that Anna had killed.

"I will always remember them both as true heroes, because they inspired those they met. Even I was inspired as I watched their courage, their generosity, their steadfast dedication to doing the right thing, no matter what others said. With their knowledge and their power, either or both of them could have made a fortune for themselves, but they chose, instead, to use their abilities to help others, not to place themselves above others in some manner out of ego, or for personal gain. It's this above all else that is the reason I trusted them both with my life, and it's why, even now, they will live in our hearts. Death is not the end for great, brave heroes such as these two. Not if they've truly inspired others in the way that they lived. God bless you all."

* * *

Anna shrieked as she plummeted from the sky like a meteor, landing in the middle of the battlefield. Everyone who saw that knew what it meant. The tide of the battle was turning, and for Alex and Fred, it meant that something had gone wrong. Quickly, Alex teleported forward, through a blurred section of space that surrounded him, lifting Anna onto one shoulder, then was gone, and soon, Fred was barreling back the way he'd come as well, into the woods, as the unconscious form of Scott Summers fell through the air...

* * *

Scott Summers could feel that he was falling. The wind was coming down on top of his head, as he floated through the air, and that was what falling felt like when one was unconscious. As time passed in that way, images appeared before him of skies both above and below him, stretching out into infinity, spiraling onward as he fell, and beginning to glow with their very own pulsing light, as he felt that pulse resonating in his own body. When the pain came, it was truly horrible, but the visions of his little universe continued as the stretcher underneath him rose up to carry him to the medical lab.

* * *

"So how's he gonna be?" Logan asked as Mccoy stepped out of the med lab after another difficult operation on Scott.

"He'll pull through." Mccoy replied with a smile, "That boy's got a will of iron. No sense of humor, but I guess there's bound to be some damage from a crash like that. Even considering Kurt and Ororo's quick thinking, he's lucky to be alive."

"So it'll be a while before he's back on his feet." Logan said, not really asking a question.

"Weeks, if he's lucky." Mccoy replied solemnly, looking back into the med lab, "He might even wake up in time to watch our school go bankrupt."

"Huh?" Logan asked, "Bankrupt? What're you talking about?"

"Logan, someone has to pay for all this." Professor Mccoy said as he looked sadly into the eyes of Xavier's good friend, "We had to pinch pennies just to get back together after that first attack, but this one did a lot more damage. Half the mansion will have to be rebuilt, and there's no guarantee she won't just try it again. We can't afford to repair the damages, Logan. We don't have enough money, and neither does the professor. So tell me... Who do you think you can go to to get money to fund a school that teaches mutants to use their powers to defend themselves in a fight?"

* * *

Xavier looked sadly at the damage estimate that sat on his desk. It had been three days since the attack, and while the relative peace had been welcome, Xavier knew that his funding was running too low. The money that his parents had left to him was already almost gone, and he needed several hundred thousand more to effect proper repairs and replace books, chairs and desks, to say nothing of even thinking of a new kind of training room. Xavier swept the estimate papers into a nearby drawer in his desk; his study having been part of one of the wings that had remained largely undamaged, when he felt a draft coming in from the window behind him, and knew that somehow, it had been opened from outside. Xavier distinctly remembered closing and latching the window, yet it was open, and he dared not turn to look at the man who had opened it.

"You could have just summoned me through telepathy." Xavier heard an all-too-familiar voice say, "I would have come to your aid. You know that."

"You never agreed with my goals." Xavier replied as sternly as he could, the figure remaining outside in the shadow of the house, "I couldn't have trusted you."

"You made that decision, not me." the figure replied, still not entering, though the window was definitely large enough to comfortably enter by, "I never disagreed with your aims, Charles, I merely knew it would be impossible to attain them using the methods you believed in. As you can see, I was correct about that."

"And you came here to gloat over me, I suppose." Xavier replied, though without real anger in his voice.

"Not at all." the figure replied, pulling an envelope from a concealed pocket on his person, "I came here because I wanted to help an old friend get back on his feet."

The man outside then threw the envelope to the desk in front of Charles Xavier, and said "For what it's worth, Charles, I think it's both ironic and fitting that you should be teaching mutants to handle themselves in combat. You'll be their headmaster in this school of yours, but make no mistake. When they graduate, it will be under the banner of someone like myself that they'll march."

Then the man was gone, and the envelope full of money lay on the desk for several hours before the Professor even touched it.

* * *

Logan was in the training area; one of the few parts of the building that had remained intact, punching away at the metal-covered cushion that he himself had thrown together, when Xavier entered that area as well. No one else was there at the moment, so it was a good opportunity for them to converse.

"Logan, I think we should talk." Xavier said sadly.

"About the money thing?" Logan asked, "Sorry Chuck. None of my old friends would touch a place like this. Most of 'em are dirt poor, like me."

"No." Xavier replied, shaking his head sadly, "At the moment, money isn't an issue. I may even be able to afford that new equipment you wanted."

Logan's eyes narrowed when he heard that, but he didn't pry.

"So what did you want to talk about?" Logan asked.

"Logan, I've been puzzling over Anna's actions for some time now, and even though I've seen into her mind, I don't really feel that I understand her. Why would any person want the power to control the fates of everyone else? Did she even want that power, or was she merely being instructed to obtain it, and if so, why did she listen to her commander? A girl her age should be making friends and getting a good education... Why do you think she would want so much power?"

For a few seconds after Xavier stopped speaking, he and Logan merely looked at one another, but when Logan finally did reply, it was with grave disappointment.

"I wish I could explain it, Chuck. I really do, but sometimes, people want things they can't get with just friends and an education, and some people don't know how to make friends. In fact, there's lots of people who have such a hard time making friends, that they try to dull the pain by pursuing power, but it ain't the same. Did you see anything in her mind that might have made it hard for her to make friends?"

Xavier knew the answer to that question, though he didn't reply right away.

* * *

Anna sighed as she lay on the sofa in Raven's home, staring at the television. The television was off, but it was still the best thing she could think of to do with her time. For the last several days, she couldn't have listened to any of Raven's plans or gone on any missions, even if she'd wanted to. Another of their psychic scramblers had been found for her, but the residual grief from what she'd seen had had too great an effect on her.

What really hurt her most, however, was the sense that she knew there was something missing from her recent way of life, and since she wasn't afraid of what others nearby would think anymore, she said the words that meant, for her, counsel.

"Come out."

The others appeared then. Her allies. Thor, Wasp and the Ant-man, stepping forth from walls or bookshelves to stand in front of her.

"Was it all real?" Anna asked, "Is that really what grief is?"

Wasp nodded sadly, and the Ant-man merely looked away. Thor stared boldly into her eyes, but he didn't look angry.

"Grief is part of any life of battle." he admitted.

"What about the rest?" Anna asked, feeling helpless and alone, "What about friends? Are they what's missing?"

"'Tis a vital thing for any great warrior to have someone he can trust." Thor replied, "Wars are not fought alone, even for the greatest of the great."

Then Anna blinked once, and all three of them were gone. For the first time in a while, she sat up and looked around. Raven and Alex had left the house to make plans, probably to do with her, and that meant that Fred was the only one still there, downing a soda from the kitchen table, where he stood, looking at her in worry.

"Freddy?" she asked, looking through the kitchen doorway at him, and he seemed to react with a slight, annoyed twitch.

"Fred." he said, "Come on, Anna. You can remember that."

"Alright." she replied, "Fred then. Are you mah friend?"

Fred's eyes opened a little wider when she asked that, and he put down the soda, and walked forward into the television room, then looking a little confused, he did his best to reply to her question.

"I dunno. Guess I never really thought about it."

"Ah want to have a friend..." Anna said, looking sad and lost, "Will you be mah friend, Fred?"

"Well, sure." Fred replied without hesitation, but also without smiling, "Yeah, I don't see why not."

"Yeah..." Fred heard Anna say as he returned to the kitchen, "Y'all were right. That's a little better."

* * *

Nate smiled as he studied the video logs carefully on his computer; the micro-drone camera he'd used to take the video footage sitting on the desk beside him. It was a tiny camera about the size and shape of a bumblebee. As the fight had gone on, he'd operated it by remote, and received the video footage of the fight in exchange. He had to admit that learning the shape of the boy's face, and witnessing the red sunglasses he used to deactivate his mutant power were both good signs. They were steps in the right direction, but unfortunately, he still had more questions that research alone could find the answers to.

There was, however, one other thing that Nate found to be of interest in one shot, where his camera panned over the section of the school from which the books, metal and wood had come flying towards Anna. There he'd caught a glimpse of a red-haired girl with one hand to her temple. True, all-encompassing, telekinetic power? If so, it was the largest mutant territory in the universe! If only it could be given a greater degree of mutant energy to power it...

The wheels in Nate's head began turning again, as he thought aloud "Imagine, both of them winding up in that same school. Perhaps there really is a God."

* * *

End


	4. X Institute 4: The Greater Danger

The Xavier Institute Neo

Issue 4

"The Greater Danger"

* * *

Jubilation couldn't quite bring herself to cough, gasp or even sigh as she thumbed through the book Doctor Ramsey was making her read a part of. It was always her least favorite part of any school experience; the studying. The world was a hard place to make a living in, and those with mutant powers did have a lot to worry about, but regardless of the importance of learning, the studying process never failed to bore her. The temptation to just skim part of it and hope for the best had crossed her mind not long ago and been accepted as a viable solution to her problem, but even that much was giving her a hard time. She kept losing her place in the middle of one particularly long paragraph.

Just as she was almost finished, however, something else distracted her out of the corner of her eye, and giving up for the moment, she turned to see that it was Ororo, sitting in mid-air as anyone else might sit on a chair, and waiting, apparently, for a pause in Jubilation's reading, because that was when she spoke.

"Literature is always difficult." she said, "There are so many words and phrases to describe things that, in many cases, I could hardly imagine. Much about this society is still strange to me, and learning the names for things that an American man takes for granted hasn't really made it much easier. That's a shame. I'd hoped it would."

"Why do you always do that?" Jubilation asked, changing the subject.

"What?" Ororo asked, confused, "Why do I do what?"

"Floating around like that... I don't think I've ever seen you take an actual step. Why do you do that?"

Ororo smiled when she heard that question, however, as it was clearly a question she'd been waiting for.

"To ride the currents of the wind, free of the need for contact with a surface is a thrilling, exalting, glorifying experience. I cannot even begin to express how much more freeing it is than ordinary walking, even in small spaces."

"So, just 'cause it's fun?" Jubilation asked, "I guess I can understand that. You do anything else for fun?"

Ororo, however, seemed to be growing a bit suspicious, due to all the questioning, and looked at Jubilation with a slight twitch in one eye, then asked "Do you?"

"Well, you like dazzle." Jubilation replied, "Me too. Back home, I used to spend time in the mall watching the televisions in the electronics stores, or down at the video arcade when I had some extra cash. I think if I had money, I'd get some video games. Mostly, I kinda think school's lame, I guess."

Just then, Bobby approached from one side of the room, and opened his mouth, about to announce his presence, when Jubilation spoke up again.

"Actually, Ororo, I'm sure there are some malls around here. Let's check out the displays. We can't buy much, but... it'll be fun."

Then, with no intention of actually going any such place, Jubilation marched off, well away from Bobby, with Ororo in close pursuit.

"Do not feel too bad mein freund." Kurt said to Bobby from the shadows near one corner of the room, "In that encounter at least, you had yet to make any true blunders."

"I dunno." Bobby replied, "It's so weird. I mean, I guess when I heard I'd be going someplace where everybody was like me, I just figured we'd all get along, you know?"

"Life is rarely that simple." Kurt replied with a knowing nod.

"Well, it's no big deal anyway." Bobby replied, a small ice crystal forming over his left forefinger, "Sooner or later, they'll come around."

Then he was off downstairs towards the bathrooms, and Kurt, having his own suspicions of what Bobby would do next, shook his head sadly.

* * *

Scott had, as it turned out, been conscious again after only a few days, which probably had something to do with the boundless energy his mutant power pumped through his system, but even after he regained consciousness, he still had to wait for his injuries to finish healing before he could really get up. Nevertheless, within two weeks, it was decided that Scott was well enough to move around the mansion in one of the Professor's wheelchairs, provided he didn't move his arms or legs too much.

Logan had found Scott's strength of will to be a rare and surprising trait, even in trained veterans, but the real surprise, to him, had been that they'd heard nothing from Anna over the past two weeks as the school was being repaired. It worried him, in some ways, even though he knew that their last fight had been a victory for the Xavier Institute. There was definitely still a suspicion that it was just the calm before the storm. Still, Logan's suspicions were being dulled by the fact that he himself had much to do in the meantime; supervising the reconstruction of the training room, and continuing to teach each of the students the basics of self-defense. Jean had continued to train under Professor Xavier, although she always had some misgivings over the division that placed in their little community.

However, as Jean puzzled over her choices, and the benefit she'd earned from them after class one day, sitting on one of the benches just outside the institute, she heard the sound of a wheelchair approaching, and saw, to her delight, that Scott had come down the long ramp to the bottom of the steps outside the school, and was wheeling over in her direction. Without being able to walk, that was a hard feat, but he'd done it anyway, and although whatever he intended didn't seem urgent, she was delighted to have his company.

"Hey, Jean." Scott said.

"Hey, Scott." she replied quickly, "Feeling any better today?"

"Well, it's tough being patient with something like this," Scott said, glancing off to one side as he spoke, "but if everything goes well, I should be back up out of this chair in another week, tops. Actually, I was about to ask you the same thing. You seem like you've been down on yourself ever since Mister Logan started teaching. If you're really that upset about not taking the class with us..."

"No, it's... it's silly, I guess." Jean replied, "It's just that ever since I first discovered my mutant powers, I've never really felt like I fit in anywhere, and with all the fighting and training going on... I guess I still don't."

"I kinda thought that was it," Scott replied, looking directly at her as he spoke, though it was difficult to tell through his red sunglasses, "but it's already been two weeks since anybody attacked us. I guess I figured that when things settled down, you'd loosen up and try to make some friends. I mean, it's none of my business, really, I'm just..."

Jean, however, interrupted him in mid-sentence with an amused laugh, then smiled at him as she said "Do I seem uptight to you? I'm sorry. I'm not usually like that... I... Well, I've been having a problem. I guess you probably won't really understand, but my mutant power can only grow stronger if I learn to focus my will and intention to a single point, then expand that point gradually. It's a technique Professor Xavier taught me for using psychic powers."

"But you can use your powers already, right?"

"Well, yes, but the professor says that this technique allows existing psychic abilities to reach their full potential. For anyone but a mutant, it would be necessary for even basic psychic techniques, and for himself, and me, it would give us the ability to develop much greater powers, but I just can't seem to make it work. It's not like something's stopping me, but... I just can't figure out how to focus all my will onto a single thing. I just... Well, I'm always so distracted. There's always something going on, or people moving around, or something like that. Focusing on one thing probably gets easier when you're older. I haven't been able to figure out how to do it."

"Yeah." Scott replied, "I don't think I've every really done that either. Usually, I'm paying more attention to actions and experiences, and I lose track of the specifics of any one detail. Maybe you just need something that's easy to concentrate your will on. That rock, for instance..."

As Scott said that, he pointed to a small rock, about the size of a wine glass, resting next to the park bench.

"Concentrate on that and tell it you want it to go up."

Jean tried that, and the rock did move upward, but in the end, it came back down again, and Jean sighed.

"It's no good, Scott." she said, "I'm not feeling any kind of extra power. I must not be doing it right. I mean, I keep thinking that it's just a rock, and... that spoils it."

"Well, just keep trying with different things." Scott replied, "I know you can do it."

Then Scott began to wheel away, and Jean watched him as he headed towards the ramp back up to the school, when the words he'd said flashed across her mind; "something that's easy to concentrate on."

Jean's thoughts cleared for a moment as she watched Scott head up the ramp in the wheelchair, and suddenly, she forced herself to stop thinking, because Scott's entire wheelchair had floated up into the air for a couple of inches. When it came back down again, it was clear that Scott noticed the jolt, but he didn't turn back to look at Jean. He obviously knew what had caused that tremor, but was pretending he didn't, and Jean wasn't sure whether she should be disappointed or relieved by that.

* * *

Ororo was bored. She was very bored. After having parted ways with Jubilation, she'd hurriedly finished the rest of her assignments, but there hadn't been much else to do. She'd spent a short time practicing with tornado control, countering the winds inside the tornado's vortex with equal winds from outside, and thus creating a crushing pressure in a very confined space that didn't even make nearby papers quiver. However, exercising her x-force in that manner tired her quickly, and she went back to being bored. Eventually, deciding that there wasn't much else to do, she went downstairs to explore the classrooms a bit.

Ororo ran her hands along the walls, floors and ceilings of three classrooms before going into the lady's bathroom to wash them, and that was where she saw Doctor Ramsey for the first time out of class. Like Jubilation, Ororo couldn't help but feel a little jealous of Doctor Ramsey's good looks, although she herself looked rather beautiful too.

"Hello, Ororo. How are you?" Doctor Ramsey asked as Ororo ran her hands under the running water. At first, Ororo was about to respond with a simple "Fine, I guess," until she realized that Doctor Ramsey had asked her that question in flawless Egyptian, one of Ororo's first languages.

Ororo, however, replied in English.

"I had no idea you could speak Egyptian!"

"Well, I don't speak it in the classroom." Doctor Ramsey replied, that time in English, "I'm fluent in many languages, actually, but it's considered rude to speak them in a school where everyone's expected to speak English. I've noticed many of you are adapting well to that."

Doctor Ramsey hadn't been looking at Ororo during that last sentence, but it was the first clue Ororo had gotten that Sheila understood and sympathized with the predicaments of herself, Kurt and Piotr. Having been born in foreign countries, speaking non-English languages primarily from the start, each of them had had some difficulty in adjusting to life in an English-speaking community. It had taken Ororo a long time to learn to reply to questions in English, even to the point of replying in that manner when they were asked in another language she'd mastered. That had been hard, but it had been good practice, and much of that had been possible because of Professor Xavier. Without Xavier's skill in language, and knowledge of the inner workings of the mind, linguistic and cultural training would have been a lot more strenuous for her, and, she suspected, for Piotr and Kurt as well.

"Yes," she eventually said as Doctor Ramsey dried her hands with a towel and put it in a small tube at the side of the room, then replaced it with another from a drawer, "but I'm not worried about that anymore. The harder part was in learning to accept that I am not, in fact, a goddess of the sky."

Sheila tried hard to stifle a laugh as she turned to look at Ororo, a broad smile on her face, "Oh. Is that what they thought you were over in Kenya and Egypt?"

"I could always fly." Ororo said, not really replying to the question, "Ever since I was little, it was just something I did. I couldn't always do it without upsetting other things nearby, and I certainly couldn't fly casually in the old days like I do now, but it was a gift I always had. When I was in Kenya, I didn't know anybody there, but people looked up to me, and when they needed my help, I'd give it to them. Sooner or later, the words 'Wind Goddess' came up, and I guess it's been a little hard coming down from a high title like that."

"I can imagine." Sheila replied, "But you speak very responsibly, and with a strong will, yet you're gentle and kind to others. I wonder, though... Are you making friends here, or do you not expect to?"

Ororo wasn't sure what Sheila meant by that, though.

"You seem to be flying in a more listless manner than usual." Sheila explained, "Obviously, you have nothing to do. I'm wondering if you've been having a hard time making friends, or if there's something else that's wrong."

"I think I'm just a little bored." Ororo replied, "There really aren't that many students here, and I don't really fit in with anybody else. With Jean... it's close, but not quite. But Jubilation and I are totally different, and I don't think I could really spend time with any of the boys..."

"Hmmm..." Sheila put her right forefinger under her lip as she thought about the problem, "I think you need a hobby. What did you do in Egypt?"

"Picked pockets, mostly." Ororo muttered.

"O-kay..." Sheila replied, backing off that subject, "Anything else? Anything you did for fun?"

* * *

"Wow." Ororo muttered, staring into the soft soil, "How long's it going to take?"

"It may take weeks before you see any change." Sheila replied, "Or it may happen in a couple days, or it may never sprout. It's a mystery."

"In that case, can I have it, and another one too?"

"Two?" Sheila asked, looking at Ororo from across the small shop. Since they were out in public, Ororo had landed and was walking around as she held the flowerpot in her hand, "Why two, dear?"

"Well, I'd like to start with a flower I can watch and keep track of, to see how it's doing, and the second one as a seed to see if I can make it grow from the start. Would that be alright?"

"Yes, I think so." Sheila replied after only a moment, giving in, "You'll get a fuller experience that way."

Ororo smiled as she peered into the dirt again. She couldn't see the seed anymore, of course, but she knew it was still there, and inside it was a life that could grow in extensions of itself into a beautiful flower, or a bush... Ororo's thoughts drifted for a moment to the time she'd spent in Kenya, and her long flights over the magnificent plains. From up there, she'd felt all of nature spreading out underneath her, and yet a hundred thousand blades of grass felt like such a simple thing at the time. Seeing the seed of a simple tulip so closely gave her a greater appreciation for just how complicated nature really was; how every minute detail had been somehow worked out into one grand design, and yet, that was all in one tiny seed, which itself was a part of something far larger.

"I think everything becomes more complicated and confusing when you look at it closely." she realized silently, "It's the same way with people. In the old days, they'd look up at me, and I'd wave to them, then they'd wave back, and I always thought of them as a single group, but each one of them is different and complicated, and that's why I'm having such trouble making friends now."

Those same thoughts still filled her mind as she and Sheila left the florist shop together with the flower pots and basic equipment for taking care of plants.

* * *

"You can't be serious, Chuck!" Logan exclaimed, terrified by the very notion that Professor Xavier had just proposed.

"I am indeed." Xavier replied, "I've managed to keep a lid on that Anna Marie business so far, and these last couple of weeks have gone very much according to plan. I'm already getting applications from many people, and notes from many others who know or think they know a mutant. Only a few of those will be worth my time, I suspect."

"Security's almost impossible around here as it is." Logan replied angrily, "That Summers kid alone could lose his specs some day and blow this whole place to kingdom come, so if you're thinking of bringing on new mutants, don't say I didn't warn you."

"Duly noted." Xavier replied with a smile as he picked up the telephone. Logan stormed out of his office only a moment later, looking rather agitated. However, Xavier had only finished making one call when Logan came back in again, and said, "Speak of the devil, Chuck. Somebody's turned the men's room into a hockey rink."

Xavier quickly put down the receiver with a sigh.

* * *

Kurt stood happily on the ceiling of his room as he tried to read and maintain his mutant territory at the same time. It was a great deal more difficult than Professor Mccoy made it look, and he'd received quite a few bumps on the head from past failed attempts, but that had taught him the value of caution, a lesson well worth learning. He wasn't, however, prepared to divert his attention in a third direction, so he collapsed to the floor when he heard a knock on the door to his room.

"Agh!" Kurt exclaimed, rubbing his sore head as he clambered to his feet, "Yes. Come in."

Kurt was surprised, and a little intimidated to see that the person who was outside his door was Sheila Ramsey. He'd found her to be a bit distracting in class, as she was quite attractive-looking, but standing there in the doorway, giving him her undivided attention, it was like a blow to the head. He wanted to teleport away.

"I'm sorry." She said, "Am I disturbing you?"

"A bit," Kurt admitted with a shy smile, "but it was most instructive. Please. Come in."

Kurt hadn't really intended to invite Sheila inside, but the words had come out anyway, so Sheila stepped into his room, though she left the door open on her way through, which clearly meant she wouldn't be there long.

Sheila was absolutely astonished by what she saw in the young mutant's room. Considering that, in the three weeks he'd been at the institute, none of the other students had ever entered Kurt's room, she'd been expecting some big secret, but Kurt's dorm looked, if anything, rather bland. Ordinary light blue wallpaper was on the walls, there was no paint on the ceiling, and a hardwood floor underneath them. On the walls were hung two crosses, and three sets of rosary beads, draped over each other, probably in case one got lost, what with all the teleporting Kurt did. Aside from that, the prominent features of the room were the bed and a bookshelf containing all sorts of books on academics, history, language and, of course, religion. Kurt had his bible in a prominent position on top of the bookshelf. Then, of course, there was Kurt himself.

"You do a lot of reading, I see." Sheila said.

"Some." Kurt replied with a smile, "Books are something with which to feed a hungry mind. Like everything, I have to be careful with them, however. I don't wish to read something that would guide me on the wrong path. I'm not ready to think on that level yet."

Sheila nodded. She'd heard that Kurt was religious, but that level of devotion was rare in someone his age, so she reached back outside the door as Kurt stood up to his full height, and the next moment, Sheila was handing Kurt a long, thin package wrapped in a wrapping-paper with a bubble design on it.

"This is for you." Sheila said, handing it to Kurt, "Professor Xavier tells me you're not sure when your birthday was, so I'd say this is long overdue."

"Oh!" Kurt exclaimed, a little taken aback, "You... you shouldn't have..."

"Actually, I didn't." Sheila replied, "All I did was wrap it. I've had this for a while, but you seemed like the kind of person who'd appreciate it. Take it."

As Kurt hesitantly took the package from Sheila, she turned to leave, then said, "I know you had doubts about fighting with those other mutants when they attacked the mansion a while back. I just hope this will make it a little easier to put that in perspective."

Then Sheila left, closing the door behind her.

Kurt smiled more broadly the moment she was gone. It was easier to think straight with no more distractions, and in a way, he hoped she wouldn't visit his room again, mostly because he'd come to look at it as his place of solitude. Still, she'd given him a gift, and he had to see what it was. Slowly, he removed the wrapping paper, and gasped at what he found underneath, then immediately scrambled up a nearby wall, to hang the wonderful picture there. It was an image of a beautiful woman with dark hair and a sword in both hands. The woman in the painting wore light armor and had dark eyes, and she was standing on a hillside overlooking a town. Words on the bottom of the picture read "Saint Joan of Arc, who defended her people with faith and the sword."

"Danke." Kurt said. That did indeed make his destiny much easier to understand.

* * *

"I'm impressed." Henry Mccoy said from just over Bobby Drake's head as he ducked into a classroom, causing him to give a start in alarm and shock, "You showed remarkable restraint. In your position, I probably would have frozen the toilet water."

"Look, don't tell anybody..." Bobby began, leading Henry to release his grip on the ceiling, landing nearby with an amused laugh.

"Don't tell them what?" he asked, "That it was you who spread ice over the floor of the entire boy's bathroom? Bobby, give them some credit."

"Yeah, they're probably not that stupid, now that they've seen me do my thing..." Bobby muttered.

"There's a good lad." Henry replied, "I'm sure it'll feel better once you own up and make amends, and if it doesn't, you can always think about what Logan would say, or the Professor. It's mighty tough to get away with anything when you have Professor Xavier nearby."

"Whoa!" Bobby exclaimed, a terrifying idea suddenly occurring to him, "You mean right now he could be rifling through my thou..."

"No, Robert, I don't do that." Xavier replied, the nearest door opening between them as he spoke, "But I'm not above eavesdropping from behind closed doors when it seems prudent. Now, if you're trying to take revenge upon me or someone else, there are far better ways of doing that. If you merely think it's funny, I'll probably be more inclined to agree with you once the ice is melted and the floor dry again. I'm sure you'll see to that. We have enough restrooms in this place that the loss of one for a few hours won't inconvenience us too badly, provided you clean it up when you're done."

Xavier hadn't let Bobby get a word in edgewise the entire time, which only made Henry smile all the broader from nearby, and when he turned his wheelchair around to take him back to his study, and Bobby started to follow him, Mccoy closed the door with a chuckle.

"Ah, the joys of youth." Henry remarked to himself as he moved over to the room's computer and started punching keys, "To have them, and know how not to lose them is the greatest wisdom of all."

* * *

About an hour later, Henry called Xavier down to the basement, which he reached by the elevator that enabled easy travel between floors for those, like Xavier, incapable of taking the stairs. As Xavier pulled up to it, he could see that Henry was inside, removing white tape from a few sections of the large room that dominated the new basement's center, and Xavier was astonished by its size, and the threadbare and innocent look it had. The whole room looked just like a series of ordinary square plates made of metal and fitting together into the floors, walls and ceiling; perfectly symmetrical in every detail. It looked something like the inside of an aircraft carrier, but without the aircraft, or anything else. The whole place was all metal and nothing else, except for the window which allowed a few people to watch the things going on in the room, which itself was made of some synthetic transparency of extreme strength.

"Well, this is it, Professor." Mccoy said, stepping forth from one of the two doors leading into it by way of a small hallway, "What do you think?"

"It's very... sturdy-looking." Xavier replied, not sure what else to say, "When will we be getting the training equipment in?"

"Oh, it's all in there." Mccoy replied, a gleam in his eyes that Xavier wasn't sure he liked the look of, "Watch. I'll tell it to run the first training routine. Difficulty level 1."

With that, Mccoy began typing things into a computer terminal at one side of the main window, and square sections of the room's floor, ceiling and walls began to open, revealing metal bars that swung, ropes that whirled, big, padded leather mats with spikes painted on them, and even a few small gun-like things that shot beams of light out.

"If any of the students is hit by the light beams, or by any of the other obstacles, the computer will sense it, and record their results here..." Mccoy said with an eager smile, "and the best part is, the traps outside the room can be shifted into new positions, and re-enter the room from a different square, since all the squares are the same size. That way, you have to react to whatever shows up, rather than being able to predict it. I have several configurations already programmed in, that are totally random, and I'm inventing more. That's the best part. Of course, that's still math, which isn't my BEST field, but I believe I've done a passable job for this purpose."

"And only a passable job in humility, as usual." Xavier replied, drawing a chuckle from Henry, "This, however... This is magnificent. I never imagined anything like this. Will it withstand an optic blast?"

"Well, no, but that's the other brilliant part of all this." Mccoy replied, "If any of these traps are damaged, they can be easily removed and replaced without effecting the operations of the others. In fact, it was originally designed with that in mind."

"Marvelous." Xavier exclaimed, his own eyes brightening, and a smile spreading across his lips.

"Provided our funding holds out, this place could be a young mutant's playground." Mccoy explained, but when he mentioned the funding, Xavier's smile faded swiftly, and he looked away from the main window, and down at his right hand, resting on the chair control.

"You don't think the funding will hold out, do you?" Henry asked, noticing the change in the Professor's expression.

"No. No, it's not that, my friend." Xavier replied, "I expect there will be sufficient funds, so long as it doesn't become necessary to rebuild again soon, but..."

Professor Xavier paused for several more seconds before he spoke again.

"The man who gave me this funding is someone I consider to be my friend, but... I would hesitate to trust him with the safety of these young men and women. He can be unpredictable, and his methods are... dangerous. He gave me the money as a gift, but I am afraid of what should happen if he ever comes to this school, expecting a return on it."

"If anyone endangers us, we'll stand together, just as we have in the past, Charles. That's how people survive." Mccoy replied.

"That's true, on your part, and Logan's," Xavier replied, "but what about the students? Do I dare look to them for help?"

Mccoy said nothing at first, so Xavier turned his chair around, and headed back towards the elevator, but just as he was about to enter it again, Henry Mccoy spoke.

"You can look to at least one of them, Charles." he said, "Scott Summers has expressed to me, in no uncertain terms, that he is devoted to you beyond the fear of death."

"Young people don't know what it means to fear death." Xavier replied sadly, but Mccoy continued.

"He's also said that he noticed a devotion in you, and he won't be satisfied until he knows what it is."

Those words sparked Xavier's interest, and he leaned sideways in his chair, looking back at Mccoy in a glance, yet that glance seemed to be on fire with what was perhaps the greatest passion of Charles Francis Xavier.

"Has he indeed? Fascinating..."

Then Xavier heard only the words of his own thoughts, as he boarded the elevator and returned to the mansion's first floor.

* * *

Jubilation Lee walked down an alleyway into the deeper shadows of the city and looked around. She could see a garbage dumpster on one side of the alley and a lot of grime on the walls, but not much else. There was one guy sitting on some boxes near the other side of the alley, but he wasn't really a threat.

"What a rip." Jubilation muttered under her breath, "I thought there was supposed to be all kindsa crime in this city."

As Jubilation turned to leave the alleyway, however, the man she'd noticed got up and stood across from her at the other side of the alleyway. That was when she knew she'd found what she'd been looking for, because two more guys were approaching her from the front of the alley, as the larger man walked up to her from behind.

"Bingo." Jubilation thought with a devilish grin.

* * *

The trip back to the mansion was a matter of less than an hour, since Jubilation took the bus part way, but even the bus driver seemed to notice that she looked a little different from most of the people he ferried, and as soon as she walked in the doors of the Xavier Institute, she was greeted by the person most likely to notice the change.

"Rough day?" Logan asked, eyeing the bruises around her cheeks and ears, and one discolored eye.

"I ran into some punks." Jubilation replied, brushing past him and starting up the stairs to the dorms, however, she stopped when she heard Logan do something she'd never heard him do before.

"Heheheh. Hope you gave 'em hell, kid."

Astonished, Jubilation turned to face him and asked, "What did you just say?"

"What? Surprised? You thought I'd side with the punks?"

"No!" Jubilation replied, "That's not it at all! It's just that every time I've ever got into a fight before, somebody's come down on me and said..."

"I ain't gonna be like that. If you gotta fight, you gotta fight. Just so long as you ain't killed nobody today, I don't care."

But Jubilation wasn't ready to just drop the subject.

"Most adults wouldn't even believe me. They'd tell me I was lying?"

"Were you lying?"

"No!"

"Good."

Then Logan fell silent again, and Jubilation started back down the steps towards him in wonderment. After a moment, Logan decided to explain himself again.

"I didn't give you them bruises, and nobody else on the mansion grounds did, since there hasn't been a training lesson today. Obviously, you got 'em off the grounds. The punk explanation makes the most sense."

"It's just... I don't believe... You're so trusting." Jubilation stammered, amazed.

"Well, kid, I've done plenty of rotten stuff in the past. Hell, I've done things that'd turn you white if you knew about 'em. I'm alive today pretty much because folks gave me another chance, so I ain't gonna say nothing against giving people the benefit of the doubt."

"That's amazing." Jubilation admitted, still totally astonished, "I've never met an adult who didn't think I was a bad egg."

"Well, you're an okay kid." Logan replied, "Remember, you stuck up for your friends when Anna Marie attacked the mansion. Plus you worked with 'em when you were fighting her outside that club, and when you were fighting me..."

"Yeah..." Jubilation muttered, realizing that she hadn't arrived at any of those conclusions herself, "That's true..."

"You're a tough kid with eager knuckles," Logan continued, "but your heart's in the right place. So, like I said, I hope you gave 'em hell."

Then, hesitating only a moment more to glance at Logan, Jubilation ran upstairs to her room.

* * *

Fred Dukes had been absolutely starving when he'd sat down to the pizza he'd ordered, but he never got past the first couple bites, because he was occupied with staring at his new friend. Many of the other people in the food court were staring at her too, wondering how in the world she could be sitting there, across from one of the largest boys they'd ever seen, and yet, he was eating almost nothing, while she...

Well, what could be said about it? Anna Marie Darkholme had polished off three salads, two pizzas, and a pitcher of soda, and was coming back to the table with a dish of ice cream about the size of the salad bowls she'd just torn through.

"No way!" Dukes exclaimed as Anna began swiftly, but still somewhat gracefully, scooping the ice cream into her mouth, "You mean you're tackling the monster split after all that? I don't believe it! Where're you gonna put it all?"

Anna paused for a moment, then said, "You know, it's funny. Ah didn't used to be able to do this kind of thing. Must be some kind of weird powah. Godly constitution or something like that."

"Yeah." Dukes replied, finally lifting the pizza back to his mouth, "Yeah, right."

"So what about you?" Anna asked, already about half-finished with her ice cream, "Ah mean, ah know the height thing's a mutant trait, but where'd the waistline come from, if it's not too personal?"

"Well, I always had kinda a weird metabolism." Fred replied as he finished a piece of pizza, "Kinda like you, 'cept the other way around. That's not so strange, I guess. I've met other guys with the same deal, but for me... Well, I got mutant powers that make it useful. Being completely invulnerable and all, and being able to anchor myself to the ground... Big perks there. I got other powers too, but some of 'em are a little weird."

"You're a lucky gah." Anna replied, "All ah can do is kill..."

"Lucky?" Fred exclaimed, losing a small amount of pizza back onto his plate as he did so, "Honey, are you actually jealous of me? Man, maybe you ain't as godly as you think if you're thinkin' like that."

"Ah don't know." Anna replied, looking away from Fred sadly, her unearthly appetite vanishing, "Maybe..."

* * *

"Up to now, I've been too busy discussing future plans for our brotherhood to find time to assign blame," Raven said, looking sternly at the four mutants she'd most recently recruited into their group, "but from everything I've heard, if you'd succeeded in killing or injuring the boy who looked like a demon, you might have lured the others back in your direction, and this last mission would have been a success instead of the abysmal failure it was. Clearly, we've been underestimating Xavier's students. That's twice the brotherhood has fought them, and each time they drove us back, but this last fiasco was unacceptable. Two of our members knocked unconscious, two psychic scramblers broken, and as if that's not enough of a price tag, we didn't even get what we were after. There's worse damage than that, of course, but I'd rather not recite it all to you."

"So we're not gettin' paid, then." Allerdyce moaned, but Raven cast him a look that said "shut up."

"We've already agreed on the payment type and method," Raven said, a bit more calmly, "but not the time. You'll get your money when the mission is completed, but by then, I suspect your mutant powers will be more valuable than gold."

"At the very least, however," at that, Raven turned to face the girl named Celene, "you did an incredible job in preventing them from capturing any of our number. It was wise of you not to attack head-on like these others did."

Celene looked away from Raven lazily when she spoke, saying "I'm just not as arrogant about my powers as some people are. I've seen one of these so-called 'students' fighting, and I can tell you right now that in addition to having nearly full mastery of his mutant powers, someone professional's been training him in combat. Maybe even somebody like Alex."

"It was probably the shinobi Alex said they had." Raven replied, more thoughtfully, "The one with the claws. He can only teach them so much, but we'll need to plan better in the future."

"What about the scramblers?" Morty asked from where he was crouching nearby, "Can you get new ones?"

"Not from the same source." Raven replied with a deep frown, "I'll need to contact someone for that..."

* * *

Raven knocked sharply on the door, receiving an abnormal reply, even for Nathan.

"You may enter, if you wish. Just don't touch anything."

A moment later, Raven stepped into Nathan's research lab; a two-room studio with just about every kind of designing and inventing equipment imaginable. Tools were scattered here and there, electric test wires were left strewn across a large vice in one corner of the room, and half-finished machines and stray notes littered nearly every other part of the room, except one narrow path leading into the following room. It was the normal way that Nathan's lab looked, and it meant he was still busy.

As Raven stepped into the room, she could see that Nathan was seated at his computer, doing research, but the moment he saw it was her, he tossed her something, so she hurried to catch it, and saw in her hands five brand new psychic scramblers.

"How did you..." Raven asked, but Nathan waved her off for a moment before getting up with a sigh.

"You've hired on new people recently, and you said Anna was acting strange. I suspect you're here because they failed, and if so, it's probably because you lost one or more of these. They are what you came for, I see. Replacements."

Raven just nodded in astonishment.

"I thought you might need them as soon as I started studying these mutant students of Xavier's in greater detail. They have some fascinating abilities. I think I should tell you that there's more than one psychic at that institute. In addition to Xavier, they now have another; Jean Grey. She's a red-haired girl with clear telekinetic abilities. I'm not certain just how far those abilities reach, however."

"You're getting awfully involved in this." Raven noted, "I don't know why, and I don't really care, but you clearly want to help us more with our mission than you already are, for some reason."

But Nathan's reply was far from what Raven had expected.

"Your mission is no concern of mine. I have a mission of my own. Still, I can tell you this. It may just be that Anna is not the last hope we have."

Then Nathan went back to working at his computer and stroking his goatee thoughtfully, and Raven left his lab, rushing back home to check on Anna, worry growing inside of her...

* * *

Anna wasn't ready to say it aloud, but she'd had a great time that afternoon. It was nice to have someone to talk to besides the Avengers. Fred wasn't the greatest conversationalist in the world, but he reacted like a real person, occasionally criticizing her views, or being unhelpful in some capacity, which wasn't something her 'allies' ever did, and that was when she knew that she'd been right when she'd decided to be his friend. Fred Dukes didn't really know how to be a friend, of course. Like her, he'd never been faced with it, stumbling and tripping over his words at certain times, but it was easier when both of them were clumsy as friends, because they could be clumsy friends together.

Anna hadn't expected her mother to take her afternoon on the town well, but she also hadn't expected her to be sitting on the couch when she got back, her arms folded sternly as she glared at Anna. Anna knew that Raven was angry with her, but somehow, it had less of an impact than it might have had, coming from someone else. After all, Raven had never exactly shown real happiness with her, or genuine generosity towards her. It was harder to feel threatened by anger when the possibility of praise was so remote.

"Where were you, Anna?" Raven asked as Fred did his best to slink away.

"Ah was out." Anna replied evasively.

"You're not supposed to go to town without getting my permission first."

"You weren't around."

"You know the rules. I know it's hard on you, being kept here, and unable to really meet other people, but when mutants ascend to power, it'll all be better."

"What kind of good is powah anyway?" Anna asked, upset, "Ah've got all kindsa powah, mother! What's it all mean?"

"Power is for getting what you want." Raven replied simply.

"Ah want to make friends!" Anna exclaimed angrily, then seemed to disappear from Raven's field of vision. Raven wasn't sure what Anna's new outburst really meant, but she could tell that from that point, going after Xavier would be premature. Even in the best case scenario, if Anna acquired all his powers, she could no longer be trusted. Raven sighed and put her face in her hands as she leaned backwards on the sofa. Still, despite her worry and outrage, out of the corner of her eye, Raven caught a glimpse of Fred moving towards his room, past the kitchen and television room.

"What exactly were you doing?" she asked angrily.

"She wanted to make friends, I guess." Fred replied a little sarcastically as he stepped into his room and closed the door behind him, leaving Raven alone with her thoughts.

* * *

Henry Mccoy typed a third line of coding into his new algorithm, but couldn't keep his mind on what he was typing. Was he supposed to do another call next, or...

That was it. Henry's eyes closed involuntarily, and he was asleep in moments.

When he finally woke up, it was several hours later, and he could hear Professor Xavier in his thoughts.

"I think you should know you've missed a science period and a math test while you were out."

"Apologies, professor..." Henry replied, but he said no more.

"Something is wrong, Henry." Xavier said telepathically, his words sounding genuinely caring, "I can see that."

"A full schedule is the enemy of boredom," Henry explained slowly, "but it's tiring as well. Even the greatest of wills has its limit."

"Science, mathematics and the projects you've been taking up in your spare time." Xavier noted, "It is a lot for one teacher to manage. Also, we'll be getting a few new students soon, and I'd hate to think that they'd be missing classes on a regular basis, due to the absence of their teacher."

"Are you suggesting we hire on another teacher to take over one of my classes?" Mccoy asked with a grin, "Who could equal my ineffable charm?"

"I was hoping you could suggest someone."

Mccoy was deep in thought for several moments before he replied.

* * *

"Okay, Bobby. No powers for this exercise. Just show me what you've got in athletics."

Logan's words entered the training room by intercom. Bobby Drake was, for the moment, its sole occupant, and he was ready to be put to the test. As the training session started, and the various obstacles began appearing, Bobby leapt this way and that to avoid them as they sprung up, firing at him, pushing towards him or generally getting in his way. He leapt to and swung from bars, performed mid-air kicks, and avoided every obstacle with swift, careful maneuvering. It was poetry in motion.

"Alright." Logan said, punching a key nearby, "Level two now."

As Bobby began to notice the increased speed and force of the traps moving against him, Logan turned to Jubilation, who was standing next to him; watching the display, and spoke to her for a moment.

"By the way, I think it was real classy of you, not using your mutant powers on them punks."

Jubilation looked astonished that Logan had even known that, but he spoke again.

"If you'd used your powers on 'em, they'd have been blown away, and they never would've touched you. It wouldn't have been fair. You're a class act."

"It wouldn't have been a challenge either." Jubilation replied, worried that Logan would think less of her since her motivation certainly hadn't been to be "classy," but Logan just smiled even more as he turned back to look at Bobby.

"You keep that attitude up, and you're gonna be a great fighter one day, kid." he said, grinning the whole time.

However, as soon as Logan saw what had happened in the training room, he shut it down immediately, and all the traps returned to their original positions, both doors opening. Quickly, Logan rushed over to Bobby, who was lying on the ground, one leg stretched out to its full length, and the other bent at an angle.

"Kid," Logan asked, "you okay?"

"Kinda." Bobby replied, "It just hurts when I move it."

"Probably just a charlie horse or something." Logan replied, "But I'll have Hank look at it anyway. C'mere kid. Let me get you outta here."

Then Logan helped Bobby to his feet, and supporting Bobby from one side with one of his shoulders, Logan helped him to move out of the training chamber and into the viewing area.

"Dangerous place we've got here..." Jubilation muttered as she gazed at the deactivated machines in the room below.

* * *

As the school day ended, and the last class was over, all the students were looking forward to spending some time relaxing, but then, as one, they heard a message in their minds.

"Scott, Jubilation, Jean, Ororo, Kurt, Robert, Piotr... I would like to see you downstairs in the viewing chamber please."

None of the students were sure they liked the sound of that, but none of them could refuse to go, although Piotr looked the most disturbed by the interruption in his after-class plans.

Soon they'd arrived downstairs; Scott by elevator, Kurt in a puff of smoke and everyone else taking the stairs, but when they got there, they could see that Professor Xavier was there alone, aside from themselves, and looking deeply contemplative. It was a rare mood for him, and a hush fell over the students when they saw the sad look on his face. Even Bobby, normally the rowdiest and least orderly, couldn't say a word.

For several seconds, no one said anything, even when everyone was there, but at last, Xavier looked up at them and spoke in solemn, shame-filled tones.

"Thank you all for coming on such short notice. I fear I've put this off for far too long. You see, I have been meaning to apologize to you. All of you. I haven't, from the start, given you the trust you deserved."

Some weren't sure that was true, while others seemed to understand what he meant, but none of them spoke.

"I should have told you all about myself from the very beginning." Xavier continued, "My hopes, my dreams, my ambitions... Still, I think I saw you as merely a group of undisciplined teenagers who needed to grow greatly in wisdom before you could understand me, but all of you put yourselves in grave danger when you fought with Anna during the attack two weeks ago, and I feel I owe you something in exchange for that."

"You've given us everything already, professor." Scott said, but Xavier held up one hand to silence him.

"No, Scott. Risking your life is a serious matter, and I should have immediately recognized the gravity of the decision you'd made on my behalf. You've all taken great risks, and before I ask you to take an even greater risk, I need you to know the truth about me."

"The truth is," Xavier began, "I did not found this school merely to help confused young mutants learn to control their powers. Those of you who have been keeping an eye on the news must be aware that mutants are not yet strongly in the public eye. Many people have never even heard of a mutant before, yet all of you know what it means to be one firsthand. A mutant is a person with abilities that normal humans do not possess; abilities that place them, in some areas, beyond ordinary men. A friend of mine once told me that to be a mutant is to be beyond human control, but I think that mutants are merely people with natural advantages, and that control need not factor into it at all. What do you think will happen when humans learn of the existence of mutants on a large scale?"

Kurt was the first to answer that question, and he answered it quickly, "The same thing that happened on a small scale, professor. They will fear us at first, but gradually learn to accept us."

"That is what I think as well, Kurt." The professor replied with a smile, "You see, I believe that mutants and the rest of humanity can learn to live together peacefully. There are other mutants who don't believe that, of course, or who don't wish to simply live in peace with non-mutants. Some mutants believe that their special abilities entitle them to more benefits from the world than the rest of mankind has. Certainly, our special merits may afford us advantages in performing certain tasks, but I don't believe that we should be treated better than other men, simply because we have special powers that they don't possess. We can live together as peers; as social equals. Of course, none of this has been accomplish yet, but it is my greatest dream that it one day will be. Do you understand?"

The students just nodded silently in reply, some more slowly than others.

"Two weeks ago," the professor continued, "I tried to convince you all to leave the school because I feared for your lives, but instead, you chose to face the danger with me, and bring that danger upon yourselves, and since it seems that you are determined to stand beside me as a group, I would like to suggest that this group be united formally. We'll probably face great dangers together in the future, but if you want to leave me to my fate, the best time to do so is now. I'm proposing that we make a vow together; promise to remain a team, no matter what, and protect one another from harm. I think we should use our combined powers and x-force to keep one another safe, and when possible, to stop those who wish to use their powers against us, and against peace. Are we in agreement?"

As he said that, Xavier held out his left hand to the students, and after only a moment, Scott wheeled forward and carefully took it. The others followed, shaking the professor's hand, each in turn. It was a major turning point in their lives.

"So that was it." Scott said with a smile, "That's your dedication."

"It is." the professor replied, "Peace."

"If we're gonna be a team, let's have a cool team name, like in the military." Bobby suggested, "How about M Squad?"

Jubilation's expression turned to one of disgust as Bobby spoke, and indeed, most of the times he spoke, but Xavier seemed to take this idea favorably.

"It would be nice if I could call you all by one name when I needed you." he said, "'Students' is a bit formal. Since you all use x-force, should I call you the x-kids?"

"I'm not a kid anymore." Jubilation said with a frown.

"X-men." Piotr interrupted, "You are not a man either, but I believe the use of the term to mean 'any person' is common enough."

Ororo and Jean both nodded, though Jean seemed sad about something, and Jubilation still looked a little discontented with the whole thing. Bobby thought it sounded a little bland, but Scott and Kurt took it well.

"Very well then, X-men." Xavier replied, smiling, "No more hesitation on my part. I won't try to break up this team anymore. From now on, whenever one of you is in danger, call out to me with your thoughts, and I will summon the others. I'll even call you if I'm attacked again."

"Sounds great, Professor." Scott said, "I'm not sure how much use I'll be for the next week or so, but I'm with this team all the way. I'm with the X-men."

From two floors up, in his own room, where he was doing one-handed push-ups, Logan's ears twitched, and he smiled at what he'd just overheard.

"Yeah, kid." he said softly as he continued in what he was doing, "Yeah, me too."

* * *

Piotr Rasputin stepped through the door into his room and firmly closed and locked it behind him, then uncovered the painting he was working on and picked up his brush and paint palette. With a few firm strokes, he was finished with the painting he'd worked on for the last several days, and took it from the easel. In the picture, a blond young girl was looking upwards from a dry desert baked by a red sun, as a silver rain flowed down over her hands. There was an expression on her face of the utmost joy.

"Soon, Illyana." Piotr said aloud with an eager grin.

* * *

End


	5. X Institute 5: Rewards

The Xavier Institute Neo

Issue 5

"Rewards"

* * *

"I prefer not to operate in high-profile surroundings," the man with the goatee explained, "but some of my past experiments have been successful enough that I have a bit of money to spare. I heard I could get your assistance in exchange for a reasonable sum, and that's why I came to seek you out."

"You've got the right guy." the massive, nine-foot man said, leaning back to try to get more comfortable at the bar table he was dominating, "All things considered, I'm a bargain. I only charge about one mill a hit."

"That IS reasonable, considering how effective I've heard you are." Nathan replied with a smile.

When he heard that, the giant leaned forward a bit, his head scraping against the ceiling of the bar as he said "Now, this I like the sound of. Alright, Mister Essex, if you've got the cash, I've got the muscle."

"Grand." Nathan replied, "Actually, this may be a difficult mission, though it doesn't necessarily involve any assassinations. You can kill as many of the people you encounter on the premises as you wish, but it's not needed. However, the people in question are all talented fighters. They have a few unusual powers that you may want to know about; teleportation, telekinesis, psychic attacks, energy projection, transmutation and so forth..."

"Makes no difference." the giant replied, "I never met nobody who could stop me. Whatcha want from these dorks, anyways? Money? Government secrets?"

"No. Nothing so trivial." Nathan replied, drawing an interested smile from the giant, "I want their DNA."

* * *

Scott listened attentively as Sheila explained the history of mutantkind; the first people suspected to be mutants of one sort or another, the first confirmed mutants, the first mutants born of human parents, and so forth, all of it summed up in a short lecture about mutant powers and the nature of the mutant gene. At least the lecture was relatively short. Sheila must have been preparing for it for a while, or else it might have just her natural way with words. Like the other boys, Scott found himself captivated by the woman's fantastic talent and genius, as well as, of course, her physical appearance. She was an abnormal combination of character traits.

"…that was how he came to be known as the Submariner." Sheila said, finishing her lecture as she heard a small, quiet motor running just outside the classroom. Sheila's face fell as she looked up at the clock to see that class was almost over, which meant she had time to plan her lessons before the following day's work. For the moment, she'd just have to give them a little project on mutant history.

"Alright." she said, "Here's a fun little project I want you all to do for me before tomorrow's class. I want you to do some research on mutants and suspected mutants in history, pick your favorite one and list all their mutant traits. You can use the Submariner if you want, but you may have a tough time figuring out all of his special abilities if you do. He wasn't exactly public with them all, and... and have a nice day."

Then Sheila rushed from the classroom, leaving most of the students very confused as she pursued Charles Xavier, who was riding his motorized wheelchair down the ramps outside to the car.

"Where are you going, Charles?" Sheila asked, a look of worry creeping across her face as she watched Charles Xavier go.

"The call I made the other day." Xavier said, "A very frightened man alerted me to the presence of a mutant attending his school at that time, and I feel I ought to investigate."

"Charles, do you honestly think your students can defend themselves alone if Anna attacks while you're gone?" Sheila asked. Charles Xavier looked crestfallen when she asked that question. Clearly, he'd been trying not to dwell on the problem of those rogue mutant attackers they'd had to fend off a few weeks back.

"It's been a while since the attacks." Xavier said, wheeling up to the car, "I doubt my presence will be too essential for one afternoon. Besides, the students are likely to wander into town now that the normal class hours are ending."

"How are we ever going to make this work, Charles?" Sheila thought silently, quite intending for him to overhear her thoughts.

When she'd asked him that, however, Charles Xavier looked quite a bit sadder as he thought back, "Now that the students and I have decided to function as a unit, all that remains is to make that unit stronger, Sheila. I have other reasons for seeking out additional students, but I can't betray the X-men. I have to act on their behalf, and that means investigating this. One day, I won't be around anymore, no matter how well my students defend me, and when that day comes, they'll need to be able to defend themselves. I can't watch over them for every moment when there's so much more I can do for them outside these grounds."

"And just how many students do you think will agree to join your X-men?" Sheila asked in clear worry, "You've got a good bunch of kids here right now, Charles, but you can't expect every mutant child you meet to be willing to make the same sacrifice."

"I expect no such thing." Charles replied, "Some may choose to leave the school, others may choose to continue attending, but never actively defend it. Still others will probably never agree to join, but I think there are likely to be a few who will want to be part of something greater. I've always had big dreams, and the X-men have joined in those dreams. I can't let them down."

Sheila still looked disappointed as she watched Xavier go, but she wasn't going to question it anymore as the chair was lifted into the back of the car, and Sheila could see the special machines inside the vehicle taking orders from the professor's hands and thoughts alike as he slid forward, to drive the specially-designed vehicle. It was, Sheila knew, a remarkable thing that Xavier had accomplished so much, and she truly, dearly hoped that the X-men would be able to survive.

* * *

"Well, I'm going to the mall." Jubilation said the moment they were out of class for the day.

"You're kidding!" Jean exclaimed, "We've got a ton of project work to finish!"

"Not me." Jubilation replied carelessly, "I've got better things to do. See you guys around."

"I will wait until this evening before working on projects." Piotr said, "This afternoon, I will spend my time in the danger room. To me, that is the most important thing."

"Not you too!" Jean groaned, "By the time the afternoon's over, you'll be too wasted to do homework."

"It is the training which I am most eager to benefit from, Jean." Piotr replied a little irritably, "Academic grades can be earned by anyone, human or mutant, but I have a very important reason for training in the use of my mutant powers first and foremost. If you do not agree with me, then you need not follow my example."

As he said that, Piotr stormed off in the direction of the Danger Room, and Jean had to admit, it was obvious that he was growing smarter as time progressed. When they'd first started attending the institute, an argument-ending statement like the kind he'd just used had been utterly beyond him. However, Jean started to feel a little less wonderful about that when she realized that it might have just been something he'd picked up from watching Sheila Ramsey work.

"Well, I'm going to do the projects right now." Jean said, "Then I'm going to follow Jubilation to the mall while I try to get my powers to work at their best again."

"Indeed." Kurt remarked, "I have a project of my own to pursue, but it will wait until after the schoolwork is done."

Then without waiting for a reply, Kurt was gone, elusive as always, as he vanished in that smoke puff of his.

"I guess I haven't got anything better to do, for now." Scott said. He'd been able to walk again for the last week and a half, but he wasn't at the point where he could try to push the limits of his muscles yet. He need to give them another week before he tried anything more strenuous than a brisk jog, according to Professor Mccoy.

Soon, Scott was looking around for Bobby, and was about to ask if he was planning on starting the projects yet, when the group all saw something that made even Scott Summers roll his eyes in frustration. Bobby Drake had used a large amount of his mutant abilities to materialize an enormous snowman right in the middle of the hall, and the whole place was becoming very cold, very fast.

"Bobby, where are you?" Scott demanded angrily. Bobby, however, was apparently hiding on the other side of the snowman, unwilling to be scolded for the large-scale prank he'd just played. He was probably laughing to himself as he slunk off in another direction.

"When that snow melts, it's going to flood this whole hallway, you know." Scott warned him, "You'll be drying carpets over the space heaters all winter."

Bobby actually stopped what he'd been doing for a moment and thought about what Scott had just said. It was, he realized, probably true. The professor tended to make him do the cleaning whenever one of his jokes got out of hand. Still, if nothing else, he was impossible to ignore when he did things like that, and that particular prank was one he didn't feel the least bit sorry about, at first. After all, it was a giant snowman. It changed the whole front hall of the mansion, so that it was beginning to look a lot like Christmas.

However, Bobby's obstinate feelings started to fade when Sheila opened the mansion doors again, and looked very sad at what she saw upon entering them. It was probably the first time in Bobby's life that he'd seen someone paying attention to him, and not felt the least bit fulfilled by it.

* * *

"Don't think I can't tell what you wanted." Sheila said as she locked the classroom door, Bobby feeling ready to drive a spike of ice through his brain over the sad, pitiable stares she kept shooting his way, "You're not bored, or angry, or looking for revenge, and that means what you really wanted was attention. Well, here I am."

Bobby Drake struggled to look anywhere but at Sheila.

"Well, alright." Sheila said, trying to look uncaring, "You can repress if you want to, but you're not leaving this room until I find out what's going on. I don't know about you, but I can afford to stay in here for three hours, before I even have to give my husband a call."

Still, Bobby remained silent as Sheila watched him carefully. For almost half an hour, the two just sat and stared at each other, Bobby glancing at the clock every so often, which, in turn, led Sheila to do the same thing. At last, after about thirty-five minutes had passed, Sheila grinned and pulled a cell phone from her pocket, dropping it on the desk behind her with a clack.

"Alright! Alright!" Bobby exclaimed, panicking by that point, as Sheila's patience wore him down, "I always wanted attention, alright? Just... not like this."

"If you didn't want me to be disappointed in you, you could have done the work, instead of causing trouble." Sheila suggested a little bluntly.

"But that's just it!" Bobby exclaimed, close to emotional desperation by that point, "When guys do the work, they don't get attention for it. Nobody praises them, or thanks them, or puts their names in lights... they just... act like its all normal and expected... I always thought it was better... quicker... easier... just to get a lot of attention this way, but you... you made it hurt."

At one time, Sheila might have made some speech to Bobby about how maybe it was for the best that he felt that way, because it might influence his behavior for the better in the future, but what Bobby was talking about made her feel genuinely sad. His name in lights, eh? An uncommon dream at that day in age, but for a person like Bobby, who was big on leaving his ideas, wishes and everything else about him unfettered by the chains of evident fact that the real world is composed of... for someone like him, it made sense. In fact, Sheila began to wonder if maybe, the approach they'd been taking with regards to Bobby was all wrong. He didn't need to be taught a lesson in consequences. He understood the consequences of his actions quite well. What he really needed was...

However, just then, Sheila and Bobby found themselves falling forward, and nearly knocking their heads together as a massive crash shook the mansion, following only a moment later by a loud sloshing noise from the hallway.

* * *

"Principle Benson?" Xavier asked as his wheelchair carried him forward, towards the well-dressed man who was standing in the front hall of the school, just outside a closed, wooden door.

"Yes." Benson asked, obviously very nervous, "Do I know you, Mister...?"

"Charles Xavier." the professor replied with a friendly smile, "We spoke over the phone."

"Xavier?" Benson asked, clear relief in his voice as he said, "I can't tell you how grateful I am to have you here. This is... It's monstrous."

"Monstrous?" Xavier inquired, trying not to sound offended, "In what way? Has someone been hurt?"

"Well, no..." Benson had to admit, "Not as such..."

"Then what is so monstrous about it, exactly?" Xavier asked, feeling less and less confused about it even as he asked the question.

"Xavier, I'm terrified." Benson said, and Xavier had to admit that he could have figured that out, even without his mutant ability to verify it for certain, "When we put her in detention for... blinding one of the older boys..."

"You put her in detention for something she did to an older boy?" Xavier interrupted, one eyebrow raised in concern, as Benson tried to explain himself.

"I didn't know what else to do. She can be so horrifying when she sets her mind to it, Xavier. I've never seen anything like it."

Xavier sighed sadly as he closed both eyes, and his mind reached out for miles and miles, touching and resonating with every non-mutant brain in that entire community, as he said, quite silently; "No. You certainly have not."

For a moment, Benson appeared disoriented, but suddenly, he seemed to readjust as Xavier did up a few loose knots in the man's specific memories.

"Well, I hope you're ready, Xavier." Benson said, looking a little worried, "For some reason, three therapists have already told me they can't work with her."

"Imagine that." Xavier replied, smiling, "Trained therapists frightened of a little girl."

"I know..." Benson said, looking a little sarcastic, "I don't get it either. It's just one of those weird things people run into, I guess."

Benson politely opened the door for Xavier after only a moment, and then let it close behind him as Xavier found himself in a brightly-lit room, without even a single window to the outside world. It was just a few desks, some chairs to go along with them, and one teenage blond girl dressed in blue pants, and a white t-shirt, who looked furious with everyone. It fact, the room struck Charles Xavier as being more like solitary confinement than detention. Like so many of his own kind, Xavier found that the girl had been mistreated; judged too harshly by others, simply because of her special talents, and subjected to their type of systematic, typical punishments, when a far more unique type of response was frequently called for.

"Good afternoon, Alison." Xavier said, to a reply of "I wish." from the girl.

"My name is Charles Xavier, and although the people outside believe me to be a therapist, I am, in fact, the headmaster of..."

"A prison." Alison remarked angrily, "Some special place they want to put me so I can't hurt anybody else."

"Is that what they thought my school was?" Xavier asked, "Did you hear them say something like that?"

"No." Alison replied after hesitating for only a moment, "I saw them talking, though. I read their lips. That's how I knew."

"Through the wall?" Xavier asked, amazed.

"Aw, you wouldn't understand." Alison remarked, a bit angrily.

"I think I might." Xavier admitted, "You see, I manage a school; not a prison. It's a school where people with... unusual talents can learn to live a balanced life in peace with the world around them."

"I'm not the one who needs to learn how to live in peace." Alison grumbled angrily.

"Yes." Xavier said; an expression of deep compassion and caring coming over his features, "Please tell me about that. I want to know what that older boy did to you."

The girl looked startled and worried for a moment, then after several seconds of just staring at him, she said "Why'd you ask me that?"

"Because I want to know." Xavier said, never losing his sympathetic expression.

"None of the others asked me that." Alison insisted, her face still full of suspicion.

"The others were not trying to earn your trust. I am." Xavier said honestly, "Please. I care about what happens to you, as... as I would about a daughter of my own. Tell me who this boy is, and what he did."

"He... poked me." Alison muttered, "So I poked him back. Not to hurt him, just in the chest, to show him I wasn't scared of him. Then he hit me in the stomach, and..."

Alison stopped for a moment, as if she were wrestling with something else she wanted to say, but didn't dare to.

After a moment, Charles Xavier frowned as he said "Has a plan of restitution on his part been established?"

"He probably doesn't even know I'm still in here. They coddled him because he's normal and I'm a weirdo."

Xavier frowned. It was just as he'd suspected. The people of that school were proving to be uncomfortably disappointing so far.

"That's not right." Xavier said sadly, "It's not fair."

"Don't play the life isn't fair card with me, okay?" Alison insisted.

"By no means." Xavier responded, looking frustrated, though not with Alison, "You see, Alison, you are not the only person in the world who is... special… unique. There are many, many others. This school is a poor one, even for so-called ordinary people, but for someone as special as you... you deserve more. I can offer you a position at my school for the gifted, and if you don't have much money, I can offer it to you virtually free of charge, in exchange for a few chores, and some schoolwork..."

"How do I know you're going to be fair to me?" Alison asked, "How do I know this isn't just some line you wrote up to impress me."

"Quite true." Xavier said, "You have no way of knowing until you've seen it all for yourself, but first, I'd like to see you with my eyes."

Alison seemed a little taken aback by that as she asked, "W-what are you talking about?"

"Oh, come now. Let's not try to keep secrets from one another." Xavier said, still smiling, though that time, it was with a calculating intellect behind those eyelids, rather than mere sympathetic emotion, "This image you've placed before me is a nice one, to be sure. It may even look something like you, but I'd very much like to see the real you before any trust-based relationship between us is attempted."

Xavier started to smile as he watched the image of the girl start to fade from his field of vision after a few seconds, and another image faded into being, just a couple of yards further back along the room's back wall. The moment he saw the girl as she actually was; a bit shorter than the simple light image she'd been projecting, but otherwise identical, Charles Xavier had a feeling that she was going to wind up attending his school.

* * *

Sheila had rushed to the scene at once to find, to her horror, that the front doors of the main entry hall had been burst open, causing an avalanche of slush to sweep out over the front steps, and knocking the man outside on his back, still holding the doors.

That man was a person that Sheila had never seen before. He was enormous; at least nine feet tall, and his hands and feet measured about the same size as Sheila's torso. He had huge, bulky muscles, probably weighing upwards of eight hundred pounds, but still, being pushed down the front steps by a cascading wall of heavy slush should probably have hurt him in some way, and yet, it clearly hadn't. Was he a mutant? Had he come to seek schooling from Xavier? Was he trying to attain a teaching position, perhaps? No. Sheila saw the busted front doors nearby, which had been bashed inward. That meant that he'd been trying to attack the place, or at least break in and swipe something, and considering the fact that he was carrying a number of sharp syringes along his belt, and wore a big, brown helmet over his head, it seemed unlikely that he wanted what was in the best interests of the students. However, Sheila would have been ill-prepared to defend herself from someone that large even if he had no powers at all, and if he was even stronger or tougher than he looked, that meant that she really, truly needed help.

"I wish Charles were here." she muttered, but decided she'd have to make do with her own voice, to signal help as the giant scraped his way free of the slush, and clambered to his feet.

"Logan!" Sheila exclaimed, trusting the man's unnatural sense of hearing to intercept her words, though he'd certainly heard the crashing noise already, "We may have a problem here!"

"Logan?" the giant asked, looking confused as he finished getting up, "Was that this geek?"

Then immediately, the giant tossed a bloody, broken body at Sheila's feet, with three blood-stained claws extended from the back of each hand, and Sheila gasped in horror at the sight. It was Logan, alright, but he was such a mess that she only recognized him by his claws.

"Not sure if the big guy wants his blood," the giant said, "but I got it now. Frankly, I wasn't even expectin' to run into a guy like that. There's only three people I care about findin' in this whole dump. Some kid with specks, a red-haired chippie, and my idiot half brother. You bring all three here right now and I have a feeling it'll limit the death toll a little."

Sheila was watching Logan's injuries starting to heal on their own, but he was still a mess. She wasn't certain it would do any good, but she shouted nonetheless.

"X-men!"

* * *

Cain Marko had often thought of himself as "unstoppable," but it was never a word that described him so painfully well as when he was trying to maintain control over his own emotions. Cain had a notoriously difficult time stopping himself from saying or doing things which, in some cases, would have been bad for him. For one thing, when Nathan had first told him that the place he'd be striking was the Xavier Institute, founded by Charles Xavier, Cain had needed to struggle desperately to fight down the urge to thank Nathan for giving him that information about Xavier, and even to avoid telling Nathan that it was a mission he would have taken, even without pay. Charles Xavier was Cain Marko's half-brother, and in Cain's eyes, Xavier had a lot to answer for.

Still, in the end, Cain had been able to overcome those urges, strong though they'd been, which meant that the job was ideal for him. A little blood, a little revenge, and a big, fat check at the end of the day. What more could anyone ask?

It was Cain Marko's dream come true, so he smiled on that day, as a blast of crimson force tore through the ceiling of the entry hall, opening a hole through which a group of three very weird-looking children soon descended, another, demon-looking one appearing a moment later in a smelly puff of smoke. Combined with the little boy that had followed the woman from inside the mansion, there were five kids there, and Cain could already see which ones Nathan had been after. The red-haired girl and the one with the specks were both there. Good. Cain could get their blood, and then torture the rest of 'em, until they unearthed his miserable half-brother. Then... Then... Then it was Cain's day; completely.

* * *

"Everybody stand back!" Scott exclaimed, looking around for a moment, then he removed his glasses completely, and opened his eyes, a controlled, focused blast of crimson power firing out like a cannon at the giant who stood on their doorstep, and yet, it wasn't hurting him at all.

"I don't believe this..." Scott muttered as he squinted a little more, refining his beam into a thin, cutting blast, and intensifying the beam's force as much as he could, but even at the strongest he could make it, with leftover force flying across the grounds, putting cracks in walls and trees, on the giant there was nothing. At last, Scott closed his eyes and put his glasses back on, not even sure what else to do.

"You about done?" the giant demanded, sounding just a little irritated.

"What are you, anyway?" Scott asked, terrified as he heard Piotr approaching from behind.

"Just an average joe, trying to earn an honest lifetime's pay for an honest days' work." Cain replied, "Call me Cain."

"What do you want?" Scott asked, feeling his hands trembling, despite his active will.

"Well, I guess you could call this a blood test" Cain said, "for you and the fire-head there. Plus I'll want Xavier to come with me."

"No way!" Bobby exclaimed from nearby before Scott could respond, "Nobody's taking the professor!"

The sentiment seemed well-appreciated by the other students, as Bobby began firing ice-balls from his fingertips at Cain, still doing no real damage, but proving to be very annoying, and Ororo attacked with bursts of wind from the other direction. Scott had removed his glasses again, and Jean was using her powers to continue pummeling the intruder with the icicles that had previously been hanging from the roof of the institute. Piotr, also, had transformed into his metal shape, and was trying to refine the structure of his skin, to make himself less vulnerable as he and Kurt prepared to do their part, but sure enough, the attacks of the other X-men had done visibly nothing to their new enemy, who swept one hand through the entry hall, knocking Scott, Jean, Ororo and Bobby to one side as he barged in, his huge shoulders destroying the door frame on the way through.

The moment that Cain had forced his way into the mansion, Sheila struggled to drag Logan away, as Henry Mccoy burst up from his basement lab, and saw, horrified, that it was chaos in the mansion.

"Oh, my stars and garters." Mccoy muttered as Cain tore through the mansion, heedless of the attacks of Piotr, or the rapid teleportations of Kurt, who was attacking with the bit of pipe he'd used in a previous battle.

"This is totally crazy." Scott muttered as he got to his feet, careful to put his glasses on properly, "Nothing hurts this guy!"

"Yeah." Bobby replied, scrambling upright at the same time, "That is pretty weird. I mean, the guy was totally swept off his feet when he got hit by that slush avalanche a while back, and your beams are a lot stronger, so I don't see why he didn't at least fall over when you shot him."

"That slush of yours probably took him by surprise, and knocked him off balance..." Scott replied, but that was when he started to get an idea, and looked around at the surrounding grounds of the institute, seeing the snow and slush on the ground, the iced-up lake in one section of the grounds, and the woods in another direction.

"Ororo, Bobby..." Scott said quickly, as the girls got to their feet, "I need your help with something..."

* * *

Henry Mccoy had been in more than one fight in the past, though he preferred to battle with puzzles, rather than with people. Still, he knew how to locate strengths and weaknesses on the body of an opponent, and recognized on Cain Marko the brown strips of some hard substance positioned along his arms, as some kind of armor. His boots and another piece of armor covered his torso, to which a helmet was bolted in place by four clasps. Mccoy could tell at once that at least some of the armor must be there for a reason.

"Let's start with that helmet so, that we can all gaze upon your sunny countenance." Mccoy exclaimed, leaping forward into the air in Cain's direction, swiveling at the hip in mid-air to avoid the big man's attempt to grab him, then seized two of the clasps with his feet, and the other two with his hands, undoing them all in one swift motion, and kicking the helmet into the air. In only a moment, Cain had reacted, however, seizing Mccoy around the torso in one hand, and slamming him hard against the floor, then stepping over Henry Mccoy's unconscious body, and that was when he realized that his helmet was gone.

"Hey!" Cain roared, "Gimme back my helmet!"

"Catch me if you can, Mister Cain!" Kurt said as, with a swift salute, he grabbed the helmet, and both he and it were gone in a puff of smoke.

"Stop it!" Cain roared, furiously driving his fist through the nearest broom closet, "Give it back! That helmet ain't just some cute accessory, ya know!"

"That's what I was hoping." Cain heard, and turned around to face Scott, who was standing behind him, having apparently maneuvered around him during his miniature scuffle with Mccoy, "Win or lose, Cain, you're taking a fall."

Just like that, Scott removed his glasses again, and Cain could feel the floor underneath him icing up as he realized with horror what was happening. Only a moment later, the whole floor was a sheet of ice, and Cain felt Scott's latest optic blast hit him full in the chest.

Even without his helmet, the attack did no real damage to Cain, but the moment it hit, he could feel the icy sheet beneath his feet sliding out from under him, causing him to fall backwards. A moment later, an ice wall rose up in the hallway, causing him to turn in mid-slide, and drift out the door, and back into the yard as Bobby Drake stood nearby, watching with a grin on his face.

* * *

Ororo had never used her power in quite that way before, but when Scott had suggested to her that moving air very quickly in a small area could create intense heat, she was eager to try it out, and sure enough, before long, fog was in the air, and the lake on the Xavier institute was not only warm, but truly bubbling with heat as Cain Marko slid along a single, slick ice path in its direction, finally falling in. Soon, Bobby had approached, dipping his own finger into the water for effect. In only a moment, the whole lake was frozen again.

"Well, I guess that's about that." Bobby remarked, brushing his hands together with a bright, sunny smile as he headed back to the mansion. Ororo also wasn't sure what else to do. If Cain was still able to move, and still strong enough to demolish walls with his punches, he might well be able to break free of the ice, but it was the best they'd been able to come up with on such short notice, and it had been enough to at least stall the guy.

"Jean..." Ororo said, drifting through the air until she was at her friend's side, "Are you alright? Can you do something for us?"

"Huh?" Jean asked, fighting back her fear, "Yes. Yes, alright."

"Can you use your powers to feel all around the ice?" Ororo asked, "Just let us know if he starts to break free."

For a moment, Jean closed her eyes in intense concentration, but shook her head sadly, then spoke again, "I'm not really sure, but it feels like he's already starting to shift his muscles a little. It won't be long before he starts crashing around again, and eventually, that'll be enough. He'll be free, and we'll be back at square one."

"It gives us a moment to figure out a battle plan." Scott said, looking around worriedly as he, Piotr and Kurt approached the lake, "I'd feel a lot better if the professor was here, though. He was really a big help the last time we had to deal with someone this tough."

Jean nodded, and in just a moment more, all of the students had reached out with their thoughts...

* * *

Charles Xavier gasped in alarm and horror as the foreign thoughts shot through his brain like a knife, drawing Alison's attention from the passenger's seat.

"Professor?" Alison asked, a worried look coming over her face, "Are you okay?"

"F-for the moment." Xavier said, terrified, "But I'm needed at my school at once. Something horrible has happened, and my other students are in grave danger. If you wish to postpone today's tour, I'll understand..."

However, Alison was already shaking her head.

"I can take care of myself." she said, "If there's other people you need to help, don't waste time dropping me off at home. Let me come with you. When you finish what you have to do, we can do the tour later, and kill two birds with one stone."

Xavier almost smiled when she said that. Alison had no idea what she was getting herself into, but she was a brave, selfless girl nonetheless.

* * *

"Jean..." Scott muttered, "I'm afraid to ask, but can you use your powers to hold him in place?"

"No." Jean confirmed, "He's much too strong. I can't compete with him, and in just a moment, he'll make that first crack in the ice. After that, he'll be out in seconds."

Sure enough, a crack formed in the ice a moment later. Bobby tried to fill the crack, but he'd already used so much of his X-force that day, that it was wearing him down, and the continuing pressure coming from within the frozen lake was making his task impossible. Just as the Professor's car pulled into the mansion grounds, the lake seemed to explode from within, and Cain Marko once again stepped onto the hard, December ground, a burning fury in his eyes as Xavier, who was being lowered from his car at that very second, watched in horror.

Then, Cain saw Xavier, and in one horrible moment, rushed forward, as Charles Xavier closed his eyes.

* * *

Cain Marko grinned as his left thumb and forefinger came down over Xavier's neck, and he started to squeeze, but something was wrong. Cain squeezed harder and harder, until he was squeezing with all his might, but for some reason, his brother's throat wasn't giving under the pressure. If anything, it felt stronger, the more pressure he applied. At last, Cain backed off as his brother stood up, out of the wheelchair and looked at him sadly.

"After all these years, Cain..." Xavier said as he and his half-brother stood together in the midst of the mansion grounds, "Why do you attack me? Why do you attack those I care about?"

"You oughtta know the answer to that one." Cain exclaimed, not deterred in the least, "You left me to die, Chuck. All those times you pulled ahead of me in sports, or got better grades than me, or got more sympathy from the old lady, back then you coulda fooled me into thinkin' you were just doing the best you could, and didn't mean me any harm, but when you left me in that cave, Chuck... THAT WAS THE LAST FRIGGIN' STRAW!"

Once again, Cain charged Xavier, lashing out with long, sweeping punches and kicks, but still, it had no effect on Xavier, who merely looked sad.

"Cain..." Xavier said, "I had no way of knowing you'd survived. How could I have known? I saw the boulder come down on your back, and the blood... Your blood, Cain. It was everywhere."

"Don't give me that!" Cain exclaimed angrily, "If you'd been any kinda brother at all, you woulda at least tried to get my body outta there. My old man probably didn't care, but I'll bet the old lady woulda liked the see me at the funeral. 'Cept there wasn't a funeral. The gem I found in that cave worked, Chuck. Now I'm unstoppable, and totally immortal. You've got a lot of pain comin' your way, Chuck, for what you did."

It had been so many years ago, that Charles Xavier barely even remembered what he'd thought and felt when Cain Marko had been entrapped in the cave-in...

* * *

"Did you hear that?" Xavier asked; a broad grin on his face as he put the radio down, "They're bringing in the fourth troop. These guys haven't got a prayer."

"Neither do we, unless we get some cover soon." Cain muttered, worry all over his face as he looked around for a place to hide.

"Look!" Xavier said as he glanced around, hooking the radio to his belt again, "That cave!"

"Yeah. Alright." Cain replied, frowning, "Let's go for it."

So together, the two young men began the long dash across the war-torn field towards the cave in the mountainside that had gotten their attention. In moments, both were inside, very relieved that they hadn't been noticed.

"We should be safe here." Xavier said, sitting down near the cave's edge.

"Yeah..." Cain muttered, scrambling further inward, "But we'll be safer if we go in further."

"Cain. No." Xavier replied, his face suddenly growing stern, "This cave doesn't look man-made. With all the bombing going on, the whole thing could come down around our heads at any second."

"Aw, don't be such a baby, Chuck." Cain remarked with an amused smile, "Everybody always said you were the brave one, right?"

"Brave, yes." Xavier remarked, "But I'm not foolhardy, Cain. If you go in there, you go in alone."

"Yeah, yeah. But when you get shot and die, don't come cryin' to me." Cain remarked with an amused sneer, as he pressed on further into the cave.

* * *

Charles Xavier remembered it all as Cain's thoughts and memories were added to his own, and those also began to play before his eyes.

* * *

Cain Marko moved on into the cavern, looking this way and that in amazement, as what had seemed like a simple hollow in the rock from outside widened into a large, brown, underground hall; over a dozen yards in any given direction. Ancient, powerful-looking armor sat at the edges of a few parts of the room, and heaps of precious gemstones sat in piles in other sections of the room, but of all the gems there, one caught Cain's eye above all the others, and there was only one there that, if he had to choose, he'd take back with him. The gem that Cain had chosen was more than twice the size of any of the others; about the size of an average man's fist, and it was a bright red gemstone closely resembling a ruby, so naturally, that was what Cain mistook it for, seizing it from its place on a large, brown pedestal, and taking it with him as he rushed back for the cave entrance.

"Hey, Chuck!" Cain exclaimed as he approached the cave mouth, in response to which Xavier saw himself sighing in relief that his half-brother was returning, "Chuck, I found somethin' really incredible in here, but you ain't gettin' a share. Not this time. This is all mine..."

However, just as Cain said those words, there was a tremendous explosion from outside of the cave, and the rocks making up the cave mouth trembled.

"Cain! Hurry!" Xavier exclaimed, desperate and horrified as Cain ran forward, but it was too late. A huge rock came down on Cain Marko's back as he fell forward, squashing his torso like a grape. Blood was everywhere as Xavier reached forward, to try to get to Cain, thinking that he might be able to pull him free somehow, or get him some kind of medical attention, but he was just too late, as another tremendous rock came down, forcing Xavier to leap backwards, away from it. In only a moment more, Cain was buried under the rock, and Xavier wept into the mountain stones, until the time when he was found by the scouts of the fourth troop.

Then, for the first time, Xavier saw what had happened to his brother after the rock had fallen down. Cain's left lung had been punctured, and his ribs were a mess of bone. His arms and legs were utterly fractured in every spot. Cain wanted to scream; to shout or rage at someone or something over what had happened to him, but his lungs wouldn't lend him sufficient power, even as the pain grew into a consuming force, that might have easily overwhelmed him in another moment, dragging him down into the everlasting embrace of mortal man's final home, until he opened his eyes.

Blood flowed freely from Cain Marko's mouth and nose, and stained his vision as he looked directly ahead, to find a familiar object resting on the ground just in front of him. It was the gemstone he'd found, and he was a heartbeat away from cursing it, before he saw that bright, shining words in red were being displayed along its surface, as he lay there looking at it. It wasn't, he reasoned, a bad sight to see as one's last sight in life, and he read the words aloud as best he could...

"Whosoever touches this gem shall possess the power of the Crimson Bands of Cyttorak. Henceforth, you who read these words shall become forevermore a human juggernaut."

Then, Cain's last breath gave out with an ironic chuckle, as his face fell forward, his forehead resting on the gemstone, and he mouthed the words to himself.

"A human juggernaut. A human juggernaut... jugger... jugger... naut..."

Suddenly, something happened that terrified Cain even more than the fact that he was dying under a pile of rocks. The gemstone was growing smaller under his forehead, and it took him several seconds to realize that, in actuality, it was sinking into his head, as if his forehead were a pit of quicksand. Cain Marko discovered that he was suddenly able to scream, as he found himself surrounded by a bright red fog, which obscured all that he could see, and a voice spoke to him from the fog.

"Yes..." said the voice, "You are the ideal avatar for my power in this world. You are strong and indomitable of will, and rage and envy burn within your heart. These things will make you all the stronger. Receive now the full power of Cyttorak."

Cain didn't know how to respond at first, but it seemed obvious to him that the voice was just a voice in his head, torturing him in his final moments, so he eventually thought "Sure, man. Whatever you say. I'm about to die anyway, so it's no big deal."

Then, there was a chuckle from the red fog, and in only a moment more, Cain Marko saw the fog fading before his gaze, and the stone floor was back underneath him; the rocks shifting around him as the pain began to vanish. Slowly, Cain Marko felt the inner workings of his body resume their normal functions, despite the pressure of the rocks above him, attempting to prevent it, and his ribs fitted back into place, his lungs were repaired, and then improved even more. Before too long, all the pain was gone, but Cain still lay on the floor for quite a while, not sure what else to do.

At last, Cain bothered trying to move his arms, and realized with surprise, that not only could he move, but it was easy, even with all those rocks on top of him. Slowly, so as not to cause another cave-in, Cain braced his hands and knees against the floor, and slid backwards along the rocky surface, eventually feeling the boulders sliding off him from the front; sometimes even along his neck and back. Then, suddenly, he was free, and in only another moment, he found himself standing up, and felt the stone ceiling of the cavern pressing down on his head.

It must, Cain realized, have been the gemstone. Somehow, it had increased both his size and power, granting him a new chance to live, and to get what it was that he really wanted in his life. What really surprised Cain was how much larger his hands were, particularly when he clenched them into fists. Each one was several times the size of his head, and for a moment, he wondered what kind of weapons they'd make as he drove one easily into one of the stone walls, causing another cave-in, which he escaped even more easily than he had the previous one.

"I gotta get outta here." Cain eventually realized, "But first I'm takin' a few things with me."

Cain then moved into the back of the cave to start collecting the other gems, but the moment he touched one, a bright red light began to shine from it, then from another and another, until everything in the room shone bright red. When the glow finally died down, all the gems, statues and pedestals that had been in that chamber were gone, but Cain had found himself in light brown armor, with a helmet shaped almost like a mound on top of his shoulders, which was ideal for camouflage when surrounded by dirt and dust, and even made him look a little bigger when he had it on.

"Gotta be some kinda magic armor or somethin'." Cain reasoned, "Maybe that Cyttorak guy wanted me to have it. Maybe it'll make me even stronger! Oh, this is so perfect!"

Then, bracing both feet backwards against the ground, Cain Marko had charged the wall of boulders that kept him from the outside world, laughing in one long-awaited, cathartic moment, as the rock gave like water before him, unleashing an unstoppable juggernaut onto the world.

Cain had been longing, every day of every year since then, to find the brother who'd abandoned him.

* * *

Xavier opened his eyes, and they were filled with sadness again, as he realized that since that fateful day, he'd never once thought of his half-brother, except as a dead man whom he missed. He'd believed what he'd seen with his eyes, and never once even bothered trying to learn the fate of Cain Marko after that. Cain was, Xavier realized, right to be angry over that, even if his actions in response to it were inexcusable.

"Cain..." Xavier said, "I couldn't have known..."

"When I finally busted outta that place, you and the whole army were gone!" Cain roared, "You never even bothered tryin' to figure out what happened to me, Chuck!"

"Yes." Xavier admitted, "I shouldn't have left you there, Cain. I should have tried to get you out, even if only to be certain... I'm sorry."

"After all these years on my own, sorry ain't good enough." Cain muttered, though it seemed to calm him down a little, "It ain't good enough by half. You gotta pay for what you did, Chuck, and I'm gonna bring the hurt right here and now!"

"Yes." Xavier muttered, as suddenly, Cain found his half-brother seated back in his wheelchair, bottomless sadness in his eyes, "Perhaps that would be best."

Then, bracing both feet against the hard ground behind him again, Cain Marko charged forward towards Xavier; fury all over his face. Xavier closed both eyes with a sigh. What more could he do?

* * *

Alison had already climbed out of the car to stare at the raging giant as he charged toward Charles Xavier, and although she wasn't sure if it would save the professor's life, she knew she needed to take action.

* * *

Suddenly, Xavier felt the wind whipping around him, and opened his eyes to see that Cain had charged right past him, looking gratified and pleased, and was soon looking around; a little confused and suspicious. How Cain had missed was a puzzle in itself, until Xavier saw that his wheelchair had been pushed along a path of ice by Bobby Drake. Most of the other students were trying to keep from drawing Cain's attention, but Bobby Drake shook his head, tears in his eyes as he ran up to Professor Xavier.

The Professor stared at Bobby for several moments, not sure what to say or do next, but a clear question was in his gaze as Bobby spoke to Professor Xavier with his thoughts.

"Professor, I know you've done something you thought was horrible. I know it's tearing you up inside, and that's gotta be even worse than death, but this guy, whoever he is, has no right to kill you. Even if you'd killed somebody he cared about a long time ago..." Bobby thought, not sure precisely what was going on, but trying to explain his point regardless, "Even if you really did something to deserve a terrible punishment, Professor, is that all that matters? Is that the last thing you're going to teach us; that in the end, what really matters is punishing people when they do something bad? You've done bad things, professor, but you've done a lot of good things too! Don't those good things mean anything? Haven't you done enough good things that you deserve to live? Just be honest, Professor... Haven't you?"

After a moment or two of shock and awe, Charles Xavier's expression changed, and his sadness took the back burner as he began, once more, to register calm determination, then conviction.

"Yes." he said aloud, turning to face his half-brother again, "I have."

* * *

Cain could have sworn he'd seen his stepbrother crushed under his boot as he'd charged forward, but suddenly, the body of Charles Xavier was gone, and Xavier himself was alive again, sitting in his wheelchair not far away.

"Nasty trick!" Cain exclaimed, rushing forward again, but at that point, Xavier didn't hesitate, and struck.

* * *

Cain Marko found himself tumbling through a cascade of visions and memories of things he'd endured in his past and present; the cruel beatings he'd taken under the oppressive custody of his father, the endless jealousy he'd fostered while he and Xavier had been in high school... Then, Cain saw all the times, in the past, when he'd seen Xavier receive love, or kindness, or appreciation for what he'd done, and hated him all the more, mistreating him and bullying him like the cruel little boy he'd been... Finally, Cain saw the start of the war, and the finding of the gem, then after that, all the years he'd spent since then, and all that he'd become. A thief, burglar, assassin and hit man... all of it for himself and his own gratification, yet none of it completely working. Cain Marko was a man lost in his own desires, and his own fruitless quest for personal happiness. Powerful and successful though he'd become, he was still little more than a thug, and he'd never had any desire to help a noble cause, or to make anyone's life better but his own.

"And you had the gall to accuse me of doing wrong!" Xavier exclaimed, fury boiling in him as he rifled through the thoughts of his half-brother.

"I'll get you, Chuck!" Cain screamed as he tried in vain to block out the visions, "I swear I'll get you!"

"I can't allow that." Xavier replied, starting to calm himself down slowly as his half-brother wrestled once again with all the old demons that he'd long buried in his mind, "We may be related, but I can't let you hurt anyone else, and I have much more good that I can still do in the future. I only wish you'd chosen a different path. With your power, Cain, you could have done so much..."

With those final words, Xavier closed his eyes, and the voice of Cain Marko was gone.

* * *

"After all that guy did, I'm surprised." Logan remarked as Xavier watched the prone body of his brother being carried away in the back of a moving vehicle.

"I feel I owe it to him, Logan." Xavier replied, "He may have attempted to kill me, but I'm not completely innocent in all this. At the very least, I want him to receive the best possible care."

"Well, I hope the guy never wakes up." Logan replied, feeling the various joints in his body to make sure that each had been healed fully, "From what I've seen, he caused nothin' but trouble. Or at least, if he ever wakes up, I hope he falls in love or somethin', and forgets all about you."

Xavier smiled, and then turned around to see Sheila looking at him from across the lawn. Without even opening his mouth, Xavier said "Robert tells me he has no desire to be rewarded for what he did for me, but it still feels wrong that he should teach me such a valuable lesson in just rewards, and yet, receive none of his own."

"Well, actually..." Sheila thought back, "There is one thing we could probably surprise him with, if you really want to..."

* * *

Nathan frowned as he moved his mouse over the time counter on his computer, and felt more than a little disappointed. It had been four days, and he'd still gotten no reports from the so-called "Juggernaut" on his progress, which in Nathan's mind, meant that he too had failed.

"Disappointing." Nathan remarked softly as he closed the application he'd been working with, and pulled out his phone, "Clearly, this requires better planning."

* * *

Alison Blaire woke up with a smile on Christmas morning. She had a lot of reasons to smile, of course; the fact that it was Christmas being one of the most minor. The last three weeks she'd spent at the institute had been absolutely fantastic. The students were diverse and some were friendly, while others were reclusive, but no one tried to bully her because of her strange abilities, and many of them had tried their best to make her feel at home. Jean, in particular, had been especially supportive, and as they'd each improved in knowledge, wisdom, and control over their powers, Alison had begun to view the place as home.

Of course, Alison had never told anyone about the role she'd played in the defeat of the juggernaut who'd attacked the institute on the day she herself had first visited it. When she'd seen that he was headed for the Professor, and that one of the students was about to push him out of the way, she knew it wouldn't work, because Cain would see the move coming for miles and react, unless she took action.

Because of that, Alison had bent the light waves that had been passing before the eyes of the big man, creating a near-perfect illusion of what, precisely, he'd wished to see. She'd been making illusions for herself for a long time, and had a great deal of practice with it, so in the end, the ploy had worked, and it had bought them the time they'd needed.

Most of the other students had suspected that the professor himself had been responsible for that, but Professor Xavier must have known. Still, he hadn't brought it up, and Alison was alright with that. She'd never had anyone cheer for her when she'd done something good in the past, and it hadn't really occurred to her to desire that kind of recognition.

Of course, Christmas was still Christmas, and the gang was guaranteed to have a whole party planned downstairs, though Alison hadn't been as involved in the party preparations as she might have liked, so she quickly put on her headphones and started soaking in the noise, feeling her X-force increasing as she drifted downstairs to the entry hall, then from there through a hallway into an entertainment room, where a Christmas tree was set up, with a bunch of presents under it. Many of the presents were from the other students, actually, although a few were from the Professor. Still, it wasn't that early in the morning, and Alison had to wonder where everyone else was.

However, although Alison had glanced through the room once on the way in, and seen no one, that didn't mean that no one was there, and shortly, she heard a voice she recognized ask "You about ready? We've been waitin' for you to wake up for a while."

It was Logan, and he was grinning happily, which was a rare thing for him.

"Waiting for me?" Alison asked, a little unsure of how to react to that, "You mean, for the Christmas party?"

"Nah." Logan replied, "The party's later, but you don't wanna miss this."

Then, Logan stepped towards the entry hall, and opened the front door, and Alison followed very curiously as Logan led her outside, to where all the other inhabitants of the Institute were standing in the snow, except for Xavier, for obvious reasons.

"Excellent." Xavier noted, "We can begin any time."

As the other students and teachers watched, Sheila Ramsey moved over to one side of the house, and opened an outlet cover built into the side of the building, then attached a large plug to it, and just like that, the snow beneath the mansion was bathed in a glowing, wonderful radiance, as the Christmas lights lit up, and not for the first time that year.

However, there was a difference. That time, lights were arranged, not only around the roof, but on it, and in the shadow cast by the morning sun, those lights, cleverly-arranged into words, were a wonderful sight.

"Robert Drake. Alison Blaire." the lights read.

Bobby had never been happier, and he couldn't shut up about it at any point in the next fifteen minutes, during which time all the teachers smiled. Even the other students seemed to have taken it well, although Piotr did ask Professor Xavier a rather obvious question.

"Professor..." Piotr said, "Why is Alison's name there?"

Professor Xavier grinned as he looked across the yard at the beaming, light-framed face of the newest student at the Xavier Institute; the colors of the Christmas lights dancing in brilliant beams off the various points of her face, as it became obvious that Alison saw something in those lights; something she'd never seen before; something wonderful.

After a couple of seconds, Xavier smiled, and said "Well, Piotr, I'm sure she'll explain it to you when she's ready."

* * *

Anna Marie had wandered into the living room that Christmas to find no tree decorating it. No surprise. No presents either; although again, that was no surprise at all. However, as Anna prepared for yet another in a long line of boring, routine holidays, by trudging back to her room to sulk, she could swear she caught the glint of something metallic under her bed, and quickly rushed forward to see what it was.

Within about three seconds, Anna had pulled it out from under the bed, to find that it... it was a plastic Christmas tree-looking thing about six inches tall, with funny-looking pieces of painted plastic, meant to represent ornaments. It wasn't much, but it was the closest thing to a holiday celebration she'd had in three years, and she was very surprised by it. It wasn't like Raven at all. Alex never gave anybody anything either, and...

Then Anna saw the card attached to the tree, and unfolded it, and just like that, her heart started to melt.

"Well..." she said to her bedroom walls, and her bed, as a tear came into her eye, "Whaddaya know?"

* * *

End


	6. X Institute 6: Prices

The Xavier Institute Neo

Issue 6

"Prices"

* * *

"Why does the darkness surround me again?"

The voice came from the shadows and floated through them, because the shadows were alone in the universe. There was nothing else.

"You are surrounded by the darkness because of what you are." came the reply from the darkness, "Because of what you will allow. Evil will win when good men do nothing, and although you may try to be a good man, nothing is what you will do."

"I've done a lot!" the first voice insisted, "I've trained! I've improved! I'm stronger than ever! I'm part of a team now, and they care about me! They care about me a lot!"

"I know they do." the second voice replied, "That is why it will hurt so badly when you let them down."

"I'll never let them down!" the first voice exclaimed defiantly.

"Oh, won't you?" the second asked, seemingly amused, "A war has begun, and in war, people die. Do you think that when your friends lay dying at your feet, you will be able to fight that war? Do you think you will fight it as a war should be fought, against whoever becomes your enemy? Will you even fight..."

Suddenly, the darkness changed in shape and hue, transforming into the face of a man with no hair on his head, whose expression started friendly and benevolent, but then contorted into wickedness, selfishness and cruelty...

* * *

Kurt Wagner came crashing to the floor as he started awake in alarm, forming yet another of many bumps on his head, but as he got to his feet and looked out the window at the snow-covered ground of the Xavier Institute, he wasn't quite ready to let the dream bother him. After all, it was just a dream. Maybe Kurt really did have a few doubts about his resolve in the face of violence, but a week ago, when the package he'd ordered in the mail had arrived, he'd been able to send a whole lot of those doubts running for cover. He still kept the item he'd received under his bed, just in case his resolve should weaken again. It was there to remind him of the importance of the decision he'd chosen to make, and so far, no one had objected. Of course, he hadn't told anyone about it either. Since the Professor seemed to prefer not to pry into the personal business of the students, it seemed possible that even he had no idea the package was there.

Of course, there was something else that was cheering Kurt up as well, and that was that despite the nightmares he'd been having, he still hadn't come loose from the ceiling until he'd woken up. His control over his powers was getting greater every day. Kurt could even teleport twice as far as he'd been able to two months ago, provided he was able to accurately visualize his location and the location he wanted to reach, plus the distance between them, and his tail had grown just as strong as any of his other limbs during Logan's difficult training exercises, in what had been lovingly christened "the Danger Room." All in all, Kurt had a lot to be thankful for as he said his morning prayers and flung open the door of his room, closing it behind him as he teleported downstairs.

* * *

Anna Marie Darkholme plummeted through the air, feeling the winds whip around her in free fall as she touched the very essence of what they were with her unnatural connection to the weather. At literally the last second before she would have hit the ground, Anna zipped sideways, parallel to it, then rose higher in comparison to the planet's curvature. She felt lightning forming in the surrounding clouds as she approached, and felt the mighty bolts begin their descent downward, but then, the fingers on Anna's left hand gave a twitch, too fast to be seen by human eyes, and all the electric current in that cloud struck her dead-on, filling her with its primal force, then gravitating around her fists as she floated in mid-air with her arms and legs outstretched. It was the sort of activity she could have attempted at any point, but she hadn't been able to enjoy it very much in months, mostly because it had been months since she'd felt so happy.

Reveling in the joys inherent to her fate, but most of all, the recent joys of her life, Anna Marie was suddenly gone at a speed which, while not teleportation, could easily have been mistaken by the casual observer as such, if indeed there had been a casual observer so high up in the air.

* * *

In truth, Anna had been sore for a while over the fact that Raven and Alex had been ignoring her, or at least pretending to, but when she'd decided to ignore them back, it had sort of made things better. She'd gotten the chance to get her mind off of her problems and think more about having fun, and that, in turn, had benefited her in its own way. For the first couple of weeks after Christmas, Anna had just focused on playing around, and had truly had a blast, then she'd gotten bored, so she'd started going for flights every morning in the open air just as a sort of tradition, but the problem was that every time she did something amazing like that, she wanted to run to her nearest friend and tell them about it, and there was only one person who, in her recent life, she could even begin to consider her friend.

Anna descended right into the front yard of Raven's house. Raven hated it when she did that, but Raven had been pretty silent lately, and at the moment, even a scolding was better than nothing. Besides, it wasn't like Raven could really do anything about it.

"Have a nice time?" Anna heard as soon as she stepped in through the front door. The voice was coming from the kitchen, of which, Anna soon found, Fred was the sole occupant. He had five cans of soda sitting on the counter, three of which were open and empty, and a sixth was held casually in his left hand as he watched her enter and throw her hair back into its proper place, after the high-altitude winds had made such a tangled mess of it.

"Wasn't bad." Anna replied, "Woulda been nahs with a little company, though."

"Yeah, well, don't look at me." Fred replied after a short sip of the soda in his hand, "Stayin' on the ground is my specialty."

Anna didn't even bother replying to that. It had been the obvious reply, and there was no point responding to the obvious, so instead, she asked him yet another obvious question.

"So, what y'all been up to?" she asked.

Anna had seen Fred react explosively to that kind of question with other people he knew, with other members of the brotherhood, and even with Raven herself, but when he heard it from Anna, he stopped midway through a sip, and looked across the kitchen, staring for a moment into her eyes, then back into the can of soda.

"Nothin', as usual." he muttered, "Raven and Alex have been gone for so long, I hardly even see 'em anymore. Plus, even when they were around, all we ever did was go on missions and stuff, not that I minded that so much..."

Fred took a long drink from the can he was holding, apparently finishing it up, then crushed it, and threw it into the sink. There was a tear in his eye as he did that, but Anna couldn't quite tell whether he was bored literally to tears, or whether it was because of the bite in the soda when drunk all at once. Either way, she knew what it felt like.

"Look, Fred..." Anna said, trying her best to remember not to call him Freddy as her smile evaporated, "Ah picked up a few bucks while ah was out... D'ya think it'd be alright if we just... sorta... went to a burger joint or something? Ah mean, just for something to do, you know..."

"Don't see why not." Fred replied, grinning, "I mean, we're friends, right?"

Anna smiled again the moment he'd agreed. Considering how long Raven had already been gone, Anna was pretty sure she wouldn't even know they'd been anywhere, which was just about the best she could hope for.

* * *

Charles Xavier's face fell as he saw who had sent one of the most recent e-mails to him. Still, he had to open it eventually. The woman at the other end deserved a full hearing, even if she had some problems that Xavier couldn't solve.

"Charles," the e-mail began, "let me start by saying that I understood what you said to me the last time we met and why. However, although I've had time to take your advice to heart, at the moment, there's someone who needs your help rather badly. The person I'm talking about is a girl, and she appears to be trying to block out all knowledge of the world around her. She's also a mutant, but I am afraid that she's unable to control her mutant gifts, like many young mutants, and has become a danger to herself and her family. Without proper coaching in her mutant abilities, I'm afraid she may never learn to live a normal life. If you want to understand this poor girl's situation, contact me by our special line. I'll be in my lab for the next forty-eight hours, whether I'm awake or not. Please don't shut me out again, Charles. Moira."

Xavier thought for a few moments about just deleting the e-mail, and acting like it had never been sent, because he suspected it was another trick, but it just wouldn't have felt right. After only a few minutes, Xavier opened his mind and let his perceptions expand to encompass half the world, then narrow towards Europe, then Scotland, then Muir Island, then further in still, to a specific laboratory and its most familiar human inhabitant.

"Moira?" Xavier asked silently, but regardless, she heard his words in her thoughts.

"Ch-charles?" Moira MacTaggert asked in alarm, stunned, but delighted. She'd never expected to hear from him again, and he could read that in her mind.

"You mentioned a girl." Xavier said, "I haven't sensed any mutant girls in the laboratory as yet. Is she shielded from mental contact?"

"For everyone's protection." Moira confirmed, "If ya want to see her, ya'll have to do it through my eyes."

Xavier agreed silently, and found himself looking through Doctor Moira Mactaggert's thick, horn-rimmed glasses, feeling a little embarrassed as he watched her stand up and walk over to the other side of the room. Still, Charles was comforted by the fact that it had been her idea to begin with, and soon, Moira had opened a sealed room with a hastily-entered pass code, and an identification card, then moved into that room to view the largely-transparent enclosure in the room's center, which contained a blond girl, dressed in the white robe of a medical patient, no older than most of Xavier's students. However, the moment the girl's violet eyes glanced at Moira, her face contorted in sadness and rage, and she started screaming in a way that chilled Xavier's bones. There was nothing truly unnatural about the scream itself. What made Xavier shiver was the way a hundred lifetimes of bitterness, sorrow, need and rage at the world were packed into that scream, accentuated by every nuance in the girl's voice. Moira seemed to quickly hurry from that room and seal it up again in only a moment, but frankly, Charles could understand why, as the seal over the door was also entirely soundproof.

"Charles..." Moira just said, feeling sad and terrified, and Xavier could feel that sadness too, though whether it was Moira's sadness or his own, he couldn't be sure.

"You don't need to say anything more about this, Moira." Charles said back to her, his own sorrow and pity bleeding through into all the conscious minds in the area, "I'll come. I promise."

* * *

Charles Xavier was riding his wheelchair towards the front door of the Xavier Institute, and had just pushed the button to open the door in front of him, when he caught a scent of brimstone and looked sad. He was going to have to explain things to at least one of his students.

"Kurt..." Xavier said, trying to sound confident, "I'm going on a trip to Europe. It may be a while before I can return, but there wouldn't be any point in bringing the X-men."

"I'll believe you, Professor." Kurt said, "Just look at me, and tell me that there will be no danger where you are going."

Xavier closed both eyes, and was just about to reply, when he heard another voice from nearby; one belonging to someone he'd known for quite a bit longer.

"Yeah. Why not tell him that, Chuck? I'd like to hear it myself, just so I can bust a gut."

Xavier turned his wheelchair around at that point. He was still sad over what he was being forced into, but he at least knew what that was. Logan had figured out where, precisely, he was headed, and Xavier could tell that if he tried to leave the X-men out of his latest mission, Logan would tell them everything.

"Alright." Xavier said, still looking sad, but there was a bit of hope creeping back into his features, "You can come with me if you want, Kurt, but I don't expect there will be any danger, and you may find yourself quite bored. Also, if any of the others wish to come as well, they can, but I'll need to know who's coming beforehand. We'll be flying to Europe in a jet owned by the father of the young lady I'm trying to help. There should be enough room."

Logan looked very surprised as soon as Xavier said that. He clearly hadn't been expecting Xavier to be going to Muir Island to help a rich, young girl.

"So this ain't about Kevin?" Logan asked silently, through his thoughts, fully intending for Xavier to pick them up.

"I have learned more sense than that over the years." Xavier replied to Logan alone telepathically, "I may have many resources, Logan, but there are still some people that I cannot help. I learned that years ago from Kevin himself. I'm not about to make another foolish mistake."

Logan grinned and nodded, and although Kurt couldn't hear the telepathic communications going on between the two of them, he could tell that there was a hidden meaning behind the pleased nod that Xavier had given in just a second.

In a moment more, though, Kurt was off in a puff of smoke, and Xavier wasn't sure whether to be pleased with Kurt's proactiveness, or mortally afraid.

* * *

As it turned out, the number of people who'd decided to come to Muir Island with Xavier was surprising. Piotr, Logan, Scott, Jubilation, and naturally, Kurt all came. Piotr said he expected to be able to continue his training, no matter where he went, and expected to learn something of interest while he was there too. Logan and Scott both went to protect the professor, and Jubilation was coming because she was, in her own words, bored stiff at the school.

Ororo had told the others that she wasn't coming with them, because she still had work to catch up on, but that wasn't her real reason for not joining them, though she told that hidden reason to no one, and Bobby and Jean had both agreed with the professor's analysis that there was unlikely to be any danger that needed their urgent attention, and they'd be better off staying at the mansion, and, as Bobby put it, "relaxing."

Kurt, like Ororo, was keeping the reason behind his decision quite secret, although he was definitely sure what it was. No matter what Xavier said, Kurt was almost entirely sure that he was going to face some horrible danger, and he wanted to be close to him when that time came. Inside, he was still afraid of failing the professor, and of failing his friends; of being too soft in a time of crisis, and it was a horrible sort of fear to have. Still, he knew what he had to do.

Kurt had brought with him the heavy box he'd been keeping under his bed for some time, to remind himself of his resolve to help the people he cared about, no matter what.

However, of all the people that Kurt cared about, Jubilation was probably the one he had the most difficult time getting along with. She was rude, gruff and vulgar much of the time, and Kurt found her to be intentionally-offensive at other times, but as they sat next to one another in the jet, Kurt could see that despite the seat belts they were both wearing, Jubilation was clutching her armrests pretty tightly as the jet rose into the air. Taking only a moment to think about whether or not it was for the best, Kurt leaned over and spoke to her.

"It is my first time on such a small airplane as well. Do not be afraid."

"Shut up. I'm not scared." Jubilation insisted defiantly.

"No." Kurt replied, frowning, but not with sadness, "Neither am I."

* * *

Muir Island, as they approached in the small, but fast jet, seemed to consist largely of a small chunk of land held together by huge, metal clamps, however, the land didn't really need to be held together by anything, and the "metal clamps" were really just parts of the building in the middle, which formed the research center that constituted Muir Island's main structure. It was wider than most buildings or factories, even in big cities, but not as tall, only measuring about fifty percent taller than it was wide. Clearly, the structure had been designed to conserve space on the island, although it seemed unlikely that the place would have been built just for the benefit of scientific research.

Soon, the jet had been docked in one side of Muir Island's central building, which was all Logan needed to see to confirm his belief that the building had been used by the local Air Force before being sold or recommissioned for use in scientific research. Logan had never come to Muir Island by jet before, so he hadn't been entirely certain of that.

At last, the hangar doors closed behind the jet, and the doors at the side of the jet opened, allowing its passengers, young and old alike, to disembark. By that point, Jubilation seemed to be feeling better, and Kurt was rather relieved to be back on solid ground again as well. Scott seemed to have been almost completely unaffected by the journey, although Piotr looked, if anything, refreshed by it, as if he'd been waiting to visit Europe for months. Something seemed a little off to Kurt about that, but he wasn't sure exactly what.

Not too much later, a small, elevating platform emerged from one side of the jet, lowering Xavier to ground level, and that was when doors at the other end of the hangar opened with a hiss, revealing a woman with short, brown hair, blue eyes and large glasses. She was wearing a lab coat, a blue, collared shirt, and black pants, with simple black shoes that made a sound on the metal floor like a giant clapping their hands, although maybe that was just because of the echo in the airplane hangar.

"Charles, I'm glad to see yuir..." the woman started to say, but she hadn't been expecting the others, except maybe Logan. Seeing Scott, Jubilation, and especially Kurt made Moira MacTaggert feel very much alone again, despite the fact that Xavier had answered her message, even though she'd never really expected him to.

"You dinnae say you'd be bringing children, Charles." Moira thought silently in an impulse that Xavier couldn't help but overhear, "What's yuir explanation for all this?"

* * *

Moira had a moment to refuse the "explanation" that was being offered to her, but she wasn't about to. She'd been through Xavier's explanations before, and she trusted him enough to just accept them at face value when he sent them her way. She could see the old mansion that had been Xavier's to do with as he pleased, and she watched as, with accelerated speed, men came and went, working on structural tests, cleaning, repainting, and in some cases replacing old, obsolete building materials and putting in new wiring, plumbing or heating. Then, she watched the students arrive, each introduced to her in a flash, and the first of the damage done to the institute. Moments later, Moira watched the repairs being done, the additions made, and the latest arrival at the institute. The founding of the X-men made a particularly compelling page in Xavier's nonverbal story, and when he was finished, and Moira found herself back in the here and now, she could see in each of the students what Xavier saw, though she had reasons of her own for still not trusting them all at once.

"So yuir school is working oot." Moira observed aloud, not addressing any of the students, which didn't bother most of them, although it made Jubilation feel like a piece of luggage.

"We've had our troubles, but we've survived." Xavier replied, not willing to answer the question in full as he wheeled forward, "Now, you said there was someone who needed my help."

"So it's just down to business again, is it?" Moira asked silently, with great sadness. Xavier felt both the words and the sadness, but his own feelings were hardly more pleasant as he replied telepathically.

"Let's speak of that away from the others, and aloud."

"Yes. Yuir right..." Moira replied, "This way."

Then, Xavier followed Moira through a side door, leading out of the hangar, which snapped shut once the two of them were through, and didn't seem inclined to open for anyone else in the near future.

* * *

The door had closed behind both of them, and Moira had turned to face Charles. The two were in a chamber; no larger than three yards in any direction, and aside from the door they'd entered by, there was only one other. Xavier wouldn't have been surprised to find that it had been designed as some sort of air lock, but Moira's sadness and anger at herself filled the whole place at that point.

"I didn't come here to help you settle your demons, Moira." Xavier replied, "The last time we met, you told me you'd rather be trampled by wild elephants than let me manually remove the sorrow you felt. I mean to honor your wishes."

"I don't plan to go back on that." Moira replied sadly, "But it hasnae been easy. All this time, feeling like some kind of guard at the gates of hell... and knowing who and what I'm guarding..."

"I can't cure him either, Moira." Xavier replied, "He's too dangerous. He'd probably tear my mind and body apart, and do a great deal of damage to the world in the process."

"I know that!" Moira replied angrily, "You don't have to remoind me of that, Charles."

"Then why did you bring it up?" Xavier asked, truly curious, "What did you expect me to do?"

"I expected you to maybe show a little pity fer once in yuir life!" Moira exclaimed, but the moment she'd suggested it, the words had fallen flat, because she knew how unfair her request was. Charles Xavier had eight children depending on him. For her to place all of her problems on his shoulders wasn't right. However, when Moira looked into Xavier's eyes, a moment later, she could see something there that hadn't been there before; surprise, shock and sorrow. Xavier wasn't feeling those things on her behalf, but because of a mistake that he'd made.

"Do you mean that all this time, you were trying to contact me for sympathy?"

Moira didn't need to answer the question directly. She bent down, looking Xavier right in the eyes, and he could see that she was about ready to cry.

"You were the only person I was ever able t'turn to. I've never met a man whose heart was so good, Charles. You were the only man I ever knew who cared aboot everyone he'd ever met. When you wouldn't reply t'me, I thought maybe you'd held it against me fur what Kevin did... Like you thought I was responsible fer it..."

"Moira, no." Xavier said, looking close to tears himself as he stretched both arms toward her. Only a moment later, Moira had removed her glasses and accepted his warm, if low-altitude embrace.

"I was never angry with you." Xavier insisted as Moira cried silently, and his eyes also were releasing a few tears, "Not for what happened. After I told you I couldn't do anything to help him, I... I thought that your other messages... to talk about Kevin..."

"Y'thought I wanted you to try again?" Moira asked, flabbergasted as she stood back up to her full height, "No, Charles. I'd never want to put you in any more danger like that..."

For several minutes, Moira and Charles just looked at one another. Each had faced much sorrow in their lives, but it had been a long time since Moira had felt joy on a personal level. She had no one to bring light and joy into her life, which Xavier thought was truly horrible, and not just because he cared so much about her.

"I think it says many dreadful things about the human race" Xavier said sadly, "that no one else you know could have provided you with consolation and reassurance. I wish I'd been there for you."

"S'not yuir fault." Moira replied, trying to look away, "It was just a misunderstanding."

"There are a lot of people who need my help." Xavier tried to explain, "I should have come back here sooner, for you if not for Kevin. Given the circumstances, I should have had more faith in you."

Moira didn't really reply. She just stood there, looking at the floor, and yet, Xavier didn't have the nerve to speak after that either, no matter who else needed him or how desperately. At last, Moira said, "I think you ought'a meet her father first. His name's James Braddock, an' he's been knighted because of his achievements in scientific discovery."

Xavier just nodded quietly, as Moira opened the other door and moved on into a hall with a receptionist's desk on one side. The dark-haired Asian woman; who, Xavier could tell from her name tag, was also a doctor of medicine, behind the desk recognized her immediately, and listened carefully as Moira asked her to page James to the entry hall. In only a few moments, the message had gone out, and a man in a light brown suit came running a short time later.

"Professor Braddock," Moira said, certain by that point that there were no tears left and her glasses were firmly back in place, "This is the man I told you aboot yesterday."

"Charles Xavier?" Braddock asked with a thick British accent broadcasting his country of origin, "It's a pleasure to meet... I mean... I hope you can help Betsy."

The man was clearly darting between hope and despair, looking for some port in a storm, but almost completely unable to find it. He was sure he didn't want to lie, and yet, he wanted Xavier to help him. The man just cared about his daughter; maybe more than anything else. That much Xavier could understand. Some nervousness was to be expected.

"Professor," Xavier said, trying his best to sound professional, "I will do everything I can to help your daughter, but I'm going to need your help. To start with, I'd like you to explain to me what sorts of problems Betsy has been having, and when they started."

Xavier could see fresh worries passing across the face of James Braddock. Didn't Xavier know what had happened? Hadn't he been told? Was he qualified? Did he understand what he was facing? Despite the many chaotic worries cluttering up the mind of James Braddock, in a moment, he managed to speak.

"Betsy just screams whenever she sees someone. It doesn't matter who it is. Even if it's her mother or I, and then a week ago, she..."

Professor Braddock looked like he was at a loss to explain it, so he looked away, avoiding Xavier's gaze, and swallowed before continuing, "Last week, we tried to get her to go to school, and she... The whole window of her room... exploded. It was like something had just made a gouge through the middle of her bedroom. We didn't know what else to do, so we... brought her here. We couldn't live like that, Xavier. You have to understand, we just... we couldn't."

"Yes." Xavier replied, "That is a very serious problem. Moira, in your opinion, how strong are the chances that Betsy has psychic abilities?"

Moira seemed shocked by Xavier's words, but after all, when a person was a mutant, that wasn't easy to hide from their parents, in the rare cases when it could be hidden at all. Besides, if James turned out to be one of those rare types of people whose fear of mutant powers exceeded his love of his own flesh and blood, Xavier had ways of dealing with that too, though Moira hadn't always agreed with him when he chose to use them.

"I'd say the chances of that're quite high..." Moira said, "Usually, she reacts worse unless she's put in an enclosure like..."

"...like the one we put Kevin in." Moira finished her sentence silently, and Xavier nodded in understanding.

"Alright, Professor Braddock," Xavier said, "I believe I may know what the problem is. If it's what I think it is, the answer to your daughter's problem is a very special sort of therapy. I may need to see her for a while, however, so that I can talk to her alone."

Braddock just nodded as Moira led Xavier further onward, into the complex...

* * *

Jubilation managed, surprisingly, to be very much more patient than usual. In fact, it was nearly ten minutes before she opened her mouth.

"This totally sucks. What're we supposed to do, anyway?"

"You know, the professor did warn us that we might get bored." Scott reminded her, "Still, I had hoped we'd at least be able to get bored without being separated..."

"Do you mean that you expect the professor to be in some danger in the near future, while we are separated?" Kurt asked, not truly surprised, "I admit, that worries me as well... If it were just a matter of patience, that... is a virtue, but if there is cause to worry about the Professor's safety..."

"Nah." Logan replied, "At least, not yet. Y'see, there's only one guy here who..."

Logan stopped short in his narrative, however, and started glancing around, as if afraid that someone would overhear him, then turned back to the others.

"Come to think of it, I wouldn't mind goin' someplace else either. You up for about an hour in one of the lab break rooms? We ain't technically allowed in there, but..."

"I'm in." Jubilation replied with a mischievous smile. Piotr just nodded, smiling himself. Scott and Kurt didn't smile, but they followed Logan anyway, as he led them through the door that Moira had entered the hangar from and down a short hallway into a small room with light blue walls, soda and candy machines, several tables with accompanying chairs, and a telephone attached to one of the walls.

"Sweet." Jubilation muttered at the sight of the soda machines, then after spending a few minutes digging through her many pockets in search of change, remarked, "Damn."

"If you would like to borrow some change, I have some that you can use." Kurt said politely, holding up a fistful of coins, and Jubilation turned to face him, looking very confused.

For a few moments, Jubilation and Kurt just looked at each other, Kurt's expression was one of hopeful generosity, and Jubilation's expression weaved in between worry and eagerness to possess the coins. At last, she took the coins slowly from his hands, and started feeding them into the machines, retrieving a cola and a pack of gum, but when she turned back around, Kurt was still there, and all the others were seated, trying to relax as they looked at one another, not that relaxing was easy, even after all the time they'd spent together in the same school. Somewhere, deep down inside, a part of those five still realized that the company they were keeping was odd, and that made it a little difficult to relax. At last, Jubilation got tired of standing and staring at Kurt, as her impatience got the better of her again.

"Why'd you do that, anyway?"

"Why did I do what?" Kurt asked, confused.

"You know... The coins. I mean, I don't like you, and you don't like me..."

Kurt closed both eyes and shook his head as he replied solemnly, "I do not do good deeds because I like others. I do them because I wish to like myself. Claiming to be better than others would be pride. I do not feel that way. Still, when I do right, I can look at myself and be pleased with what I see. It is what makes faith and patience possible in a world filled with so much suffering."

When Kurt said that, Logan's eyebrows raised a little, but he didn't seem to really be looking at the kids. Jubilation, in turn, didn't seem eager to reply to Kurt's explanation, and, in fact, showed no signs of even being interested in what he'd just said, but Kurt could see the truth, even behind her dark sunglasses. Jubilation had never had faith or patience, because she took no joy from doing right, if indeed she'd ever tried to. Perhaps she'd had no encouragement in doing right during her childhood, and simply didn't understand how, or maybe the reactions of others in her life had been so obvious and intentional that she'd never even noticed the feelings of satisfaction that came from doing right. Whatever it was, Kurt was instantly certain that no one he knew was as spiritually lost as Jubilation Lee.

The five of them were sitting there for several minutes with very little to do with the copious time on their hands, when Piotr spoke to Logan directly, having remained in his human form the whole time; a strange thing for him.

"Logan, you spoke earlier about a man here who might threaten the safety of Professor Xavier..."

"Yeah..." Logan replied, "You kids deserve to know the truth about that. Chuck didn't mention it earlier 'cause he didn't want you to worry, but there's a guy in this place who's a real psycho mutant. That Moira lady ya saw earlier... She was his mum."

"Do you mean that Moira's son is the threat you were talking about?" Scott asked, looking horrified.

"Yup." Logan replied, "He ain't much older'n you, neither. 'Cept he never had mutant teachers and role models. Moira's human, y'see, and she had kinda a tough marriage. When her kid was born, his pop didn't see nothin' but somebody else ta kick around, but he started usin' his mutant powers when he was about four. Kevin Mctaggert killed his daddy with his mutant powers, and a whole buncha other people too, before the military finally found a way ta stop him. Moira didn't get ta see him fer years. It was a real tragedy."

"Himmel..." Kurt muttered, "What a tragic story..."

"Yeah." Logan said, "Moira spent years workin' on mutant biology, ta try and cure her kid... Even when she got recognition as the best mutant expert on the whole planet, the government didn't want her gettin' to Kevin. In the end, the only reason they let her work with 'im was 'cause she threatened to go to the press about it. They didn't want the word gettin' out that Kevin even existed. It's 'cause of his power..."

"So what was the little twerp's mutant power?" Jubilation asked, putting down her soda, "Did he make people explode or somethin'?"

"Kinda." Logan replied, "When he was four, Kevin starting shinin' like the sun, and from then on, he had the power ta enter other people's bodies and control 'em. When he was inside 'em, he could still use all his other mutant powers, though, except when he did, the people he possessed kinda... wrinkled up like raisins, 'til they turned ta ash..."

For several seconds, none of the students could speak. Scott and Kurt's mouths were wide open as they listened to the tale of the psychotic mutant who possessed others, killing them from within. Jubilation had left her soda untouched the whole time, and even Piotr's eyebrows had risen a bit more than usual. Finally, however, it seemed to be Piotr who recovered first.

"You said that Kevin had other abilities which he could use at all times. What were they, precisely?"

"Short-range omnipotence." Logan replied, drawing looks of genuine shock again from Scott and Kurt, although Jubilation and Piotr looked a bit skeptical, "The guy could usually change, reshape and twist pretty much anything he laid his eyes on. It took a while before they figured out his weakness was iron alloys. He could never shape anything made of iron or steel, except when he was in somebody's body... Then he could control whatever he could see..."

"I wasn't there myself..." Logan continued, "But from what I hear, once they figured out his weakness, the military locked down a patch of countryside about a mile square, flew in a bunch of steel boxes and shot up the innocent he was using for his host. Then, when he left the guy's body, they dropped the cage pieces over him by helicopter and closed it up by motor. Real close call."

"Do you mean that the British military killed an innocent man in order to stop Kevin?" Kurt asked, horrified.

"That ain't what I said," Logan replied, just a little irritated, "Kevin was usin' that guy as a weapon, and he woulda died anyway, then Kevin woulda gone after some other poor sucker. In my mind, that says that it was Kevin what killed all those people, not the feds. They just did what they had to to save the most lives, and in their place, I'd have done the same."

Kurt still felt sick from the news, as Logan turned back away from the students to face the wall, then muttered, "I hope you'd all be strong enough ta make the same choice, otherwise you'd all get yourselves killed. When there's a war on, and the bad guy wants you dead, sometimes you've gotta make the tough choices like that. There ain't always a better way to fix things."

It was a dark thing to think about, but regardless, Kurt did. Images flowed through his mind of battles fought in vain against a malevolent force that could control his every move if it laid eyes on him, and then, he saw that force taking possession of an innocent man, and realized that he was needed to kill that man. He could leap... he could teleport... he could conceal himself in the shadows. He was the best choice to go after a being that could destroy whatever it could find, but could he bring himself to kill a man? Especially one he knew to be innocent?

Then, another set of questions made themselves apparent to Kurt Wagner. What if the man he needed to kill was someone he'd once considered his friend? What if it was someone he still considered a friend? Could he kill Scott Summers or Ororo Munroe, in order to save his other friends?

"I flee from the very thought of doing such a thing." Kurt realized, "The horrible dreams that I have been having... Is this the fear that they express? The fear that I cannot make such a choice... The fear that I will be so eager to retreat from a choice of that nature, that I would let everyone die..."

Then, Kurt pondered yet another scene in his thoughts. It was a scene of everyone he knew and cared about, or had ever cared about, lying around him in a circle, each one quite dead, and above them all, an all-consuming fire sweeping across cities and towns around him as he stood in the midst of the unearthly destruction, terrified of killing. The thought filled him with greater horror than ever, as he focused once more on the room he was actually in, and the people who surrounded him, all of whom, he realized, seemed to be relaxing.

"None of them have pondered this just now." Kurt realized, a little ashamed over having worried so much, "I was the only one bothered by these things. Perhaps I am merely being foolish..."

Then, Kurt tried to relax too, although by that point, it was proving very difficult.

* * *

Charles Xavier sighed, a little worried as the magnetic security doors slid open, and he was admitted into the secure chamber containing the young mutant girl named Betsy Braddock. From the door itself, Xavier couldn't see Betsy, and she wasn't making any sounds, either. He needed to wheel along the metal floor, and around one corner within the secure room to reach the transparent side of Betsy's enclosure, and from what he'd seen through Moira's eyes before, he didn't relish doing that, unless he was sure he'd be able to defend himself quickly.

"Moira." Xavier said to her silently, "Is there a way that I could be sealed in with Betsy for a short time? I wish to use my mutant powers in her therapy."

"I thought so..." Moira replied, "I'll give yeh fifteen minutes after I lock down the outer door with psychic shielding. After that, yeh'll have to come back oot and report."

"Very well." Xavier replied.

Soon, the outer door slammed shut, and Xavier could hear the locks closing him in, as similar locks were undone in the chamber in front of him. The chamber itself wasn't opening physically, but Xavier could feel that the mind of Betsy Braddock was no longer being restrained to the tiny little block she'd been using as her living place. Quickly, the professor moved his chair forward, so that he was facing the terrified girl in the small enclosure, and the moment he did, a horrified, despair-filled wail filled the chamber, echoing in Charles Xavier's mind, as he tried to block out his sense of hearing, and focus on what needed to be done. He had to reach Betsy Braddock with his own mind.

Charles Xavier had never met a psychic whose mental powers truly exceeded his own, and so he directed the full strength of his mind to the task of locating and identifying the source of Betsy's problems.

However, no sooner had Xavier begun sending minor telepathic communications in Betsy's direction, then she retaliated with a mental onslaught that swept through Xavier's defenses like they were made of paper. For a moment, he'd been caught off guard. In his whole life, Xavier had only met one other person, besides himself, who wielded such telepathic strength, and hoped never to meet him again. Betsy Braddock was one of the most powerful psychics who'd ever lived. There was no doubt about that anymore.

As Xavier slowly pulled back, reinforcing his mental defenses in preparation for battle if need be, he reached out once more, concentrating every ounce of his formidable mental power towards a single intention, which he was certain Betsy could hear.

"You have closed yourself off from the world, but do not close yourself off from me. I wish only to help you sort out your difficulties. If you doubt my intentions, read my thoughts, and judge for yourself."

Up to that very moment, Betsy had not displayed any sign to Xavier that she was capable of being civilized, curious or intelligent, and the wailing didn't stop as he made his request, but he could hear in her thoughts, the hesitation in her course of action. She was reacting, not to what he'd told her, but to the very fact that he was there, in her mind of his own volition, and not by accident, and in that moment, Xavier could see the problem.

For a moment, Xavier felt another presence, like fingers, trembling but warm, feeling his metaphysical essence as it filled the room. Betsy felt his defenses and his intentions, and then she reached for his memories and saw that, for once, they came slowly, and in bits. They were memories of a school in Westchester; students with abnormal abilities, and teachers who were both civilized and terrifying. She saw captivating sights, and the problems they'd been through, and grown stronger from. Then came images of people further in Xavier's past, who...

Suddenly, however, those images were gone. Xavier had drawn them back, as if he wanted to hide them from her. It was the first time she'd been unable to sense a person's memories, and the first time, ironically, that she'd wished to.

"In time." Xavier said, "Perhaps you'll learn all about my past later, once we've earned each other's trust. I know why you've been so miserable."

Betsy Braddock's screaming lessened in volume as Xavier spoke, and he had to fight back the urge to smile over that.

Betsy still didn't speak in words, but she seemed to have gotten the idea. In response, she unleashed what Xavier thought, at first, was an attack, but as he felt it wash over him, sweeping him back into his own mind, he noticed that the attack consisted of memories. A mother who worked two jobs and still barely had enough to feed her kids. A rich man who struggled for more money at the expense of those working for him. An ordinary man who would have eagerly blown up every other motorist in sight if it would get him to work a few seconds earlier. A jogger who was struggling to lose those last few pounds to impress someone else in her life, and not because of any desires of her own. In each instance, horrors were outlined, like papers written on the lives of people, with the sins and mistakes highlighted in bright neon yellow, and as Xavier opened his eyes again, he could still feel all of that corrosion of the mind and soul, trying to crawl up the edges of his thoughts. It was no wonder Betsy Braddock was so eager to live as a hermit. She was absorbing the thoughts of others against her own will.

Xavier was still pondering that as the seal over Betsy's enclosure came back up, and the one over the doorway out descended again.

* * *

Anna's return home from her latest outing with the only real friend she had came much later in the evening. In fact, Anna was expecting Raven to attempt another of her lectures about responsible use of her powers, and the importance of acting with caution, and as a team, despite having made no real efforts to reorganize the Brotherhood into another strike force. However, when Fred and Anna stepped in through the door that evening, they were surprised to find that all the other members of the brotherhood had gathered there already. Allerdyce was leaning back in a recliner, looking bored. Morty was crouched on the ceiling, Celene was standing in one corner, and Alex was right next to the door. Raven was seated on the couch in the room's center, but she got up when Anna approached. The biggest surprise to Anna, however, wasn't that they'd all gathered without her prior knowledge, but that Raven didn't seem upset with her anymore.

"I'm glad you're here." Raven said, "According to our mutant detector, Charles Xavier seems to have left the country by plane. Still, it won't be long before he returns, and when that happens, we need to be ready to attack as soon as he lands."

It all seemed so puerile to Anna... So stupid and immature, like a classroom environment, so that was probably why she chose to raise her hand at that moment.

"Yes. What is it, Anna?" Raven asked, signs of worry already showing all over her face.

"Well, couldn't ah just blow the old coot's plane outta the skah, and catch him on the way down?"

"No. It's too dangerous." Raven replied, "You're the only one of us who can fly, and Alex's teleportation can't take him that far up, all at once. You wouldn't have any backup."

"Well, ah could bring Fred with me, and..."

"I said no." Raven replied icily, "This is a mission, not a date. You need to be thinking about what the safest course of action is, and you can't do that if you're distracted."

Anna flushed bright crimson the moment Raven had started to talk like that. It was true that she and Fred had snuck out in the past more than once for burgers, or pizza, or video rentals, but for obvious reasons, neither one had ever tried to touch the other, and Anna could hardly think of Fred like a boyfriend, because he was... He was...

However, just then, Anna took in all the other inhabitants of the room at a glance. She could see Allerdyce fingering a book of matches as he eyed her warily. She could see Morty bracing his feet a little more carefully than normal against the ceiling, and Alex had opened his eyes, which he rarely did while listening to Raven speak, to look at her. Even Celene seemed concerned by her, and Raven was definitely becoming worried by her too. Otherwise, why try so hard to exert her long-lost motherly dominance?

Only one person in that room seemed the least bit secure around Anna, and that was Frederick J. Dukes. He never seemed nervous, or worried, or particularly disturbed when she was nearby. He didn't exactly rush to do her favors, of course. Anna was pretty sure that the spirit of a true romantic would have been lost on someone as simpleminded as Fred. Still, he'd always been perfectly casual around her, and no one else ever was.

The difference wasn't his invulnerability. Against her powers, he had no defense. Was he simply too dim to realize that he should be afraid of her, or was it something else? Anna was puzzled by that, as she watched Fred lean against the back wall of the living room, looking casually over the group.

Raven had just finished describing some lame plan of branching out and surrounding the plane when it landed to prevent escape. That made no difference. Any plan of attack boiled down to Anna's ability to do a whole lot of damage very quickly. The others wouldn't mean as much when the chips were down. Perhaps, Anna realized with some slight dread, Raven truly was rubbing off on her. She was starting to think tactically and sensibly, but then again, it might just have been the logical tendencies of Henry Pym, or the warrior's experience of the thunder god influencing her thoughts.

As Raven finished describing her plan, down to the precise day and hour when they'd need to be ready, Anna showed progressively less interest in it, and when Raven looked at her one last time, she could see that Anna was really only trying to pretend that she was paying attention, and that was when Raven got really upset.

"How are we supposed to accomplish our goals if you don't pay attention when I'm describing our plans?" Raven demanded angrily.

"Ahm not sure..." Anna replied slowly, looking away. Truthfully, her own goals were very different from Raven's by that point, but she didn't want to waste her time arguing with her mother. There wasn't any point. Raven was rather a pigheaded person when it came to what she wanted.

Raven Darkholme still looked a little upset as the meeting was adjourned, and the majority of the brotherhood returned to their own homes and cars, another long night ahead of them. Anna felt like asking why Penny hadn't needed to attend the meeting, but it would have just been a taunt in Raven's direction. She knew the answer.

Raven would probably have offered to let Anna and Fred have dinner with her and Alex, but it would just have been an attempt to make Anna feel indebted to her, which she truly didn't need. It was hard to feel indebted to Raven Darkholme after all the time she'd spent avoiding her responsibilities as a mother... All the years Anna had spent thinking that she was just like everybody else, until the day her Daddy died, and Raven finally showed up in her life; a long-lost mother who'd never been there for her, and had probably only shown up, so that she could use her as a weapon. For a while, Anna had enjoyed using her mutant power, no matter what she used it for, and her powers were still a big part of most of the fun she ever had, but the thrill of being useful to someone else (another uncommon thing in her life before Raven) had faded quickly, and she'd started to realize that she wanted things for herself. Even before the kid with the eye-blasts, and more recently, Fred Dukes, had shown her what it was she really wanted in life, she'd seen the emptiness of Raven's plans. What if mankind DID learn to treat mutants as Gods? So what? Wouldn't that just make it harder to make friends, rather than easier?

Anna continued to ponder those things as, avoiding the gazes of both Raven and Alex, she floated into the hallway leading to the bedrooms, and went to her own, sitting down in bed. Anna tried to lie down, and then turned over, then back again, then she floated two feet above the bed sheets, then switched directions, and lay her feet on her pillows, and her head near the other end. It didn't help, though. She was feeling too incomplete and restless to get any sleep, so she quickly righted herself, and got to her feet.

Anna could hear, just a little bit down the hall from her room, that Fred had taken up residence in his own bedroom, and seemed to be tossing something against the wall. In a burst of unearthly speed, Anna had rushed into his room and snatched the tennis ball from the air with a smile, handing it back to Fred, and closing the door behind her. No more beating around the bush. It was time for them to talk.

"So what's up?" Fred asked casually as he leaned back in the chair he was seated in.

"When ah was thirteen..." Anna began, "ah gave a poor boyfriend o'mine a kiss. Lasted for a while, and ah thought he wanted more, 'cause he was tremblin'. The poor boy died in mah arms..."

Fred didn't speak, because he was pretty sure Anna wasn't finished yet.

"Mah daddy got real mad. Ah tried to tell him ah didn't do it, but... He wasn't gonna listen. Ah... He was gonna tell the police that ah'd killed Cory... Ah didn't have a choice... That was the first time ah evah took a man on purpose."

"Your pop?" Fred asked. Anna just nodded, both eyes closed.

"When Raven showed up, and told me she was mah mother, ah was so relieved. Ah had no idea what ah was gonna do, or where ah was gonna live. With the power to kill people whenever ah touch 'em, ah thought ah was some kinda vampire for a while. But Raven taught me mah powers weren't evil. They just had ta be used in the right way. Ah still think that's true."

"Yeah." Fred said, "Yeah, me too, I guess."

"If it came to a fight between me and the brotherhood, do y'all think ahd win?" Anna asked point blank, and she'd been expecting Fred to start in alarm, or stand up, or at least look a little surprised by the question, but he registered no shock at all as he replied.

"Yeah. I think so. Especially since I'd be on your side, and half the brotherhood ain't that devoted to Raven anymore."

"Ya'd... side with me?" Anna asked, "Why? Ahm just a killer..."

"Don't kid yourself, Anna." Fred replied, "There's lots of folks I can't picture you killing."

"Like who?" Anna asked, her best, most wonderful suspicions suddenly being validated.

"Well, for instance." Fred said, "Remember that club we went to a while back? There was a kid you took to get his dance skills. Now, you coulda had them skills forever, just by hangin' on a few seconds more, but you let him go, so's he could recover in a few hours. That's the kinda stuff I'm talking about, Anna. You've got all the power you need to kill folks that get in your way, but you don't really wanna kill guys for no reason."

"Is that why y'all aren't scared of me?" Anna asked, fascinated, "Ah mean, yah never were..."

"Yeah." Fred said, "I could see that in you from the start. You ain't just a mindless killer, Anna, even if you try to hide it."

Anna was really taken aback by that. Everyone, including herself, had always thought of Fred Dukes as being somewhat dim, but from that dimness, he'd recognized something that even she herself had failed to see. When it came down to it, she didn't really want to kill. Suddenly, she realized in amazement, she had a boyfriend, and a new side of herself all at once. Anna felt like covering herself in clouds and lightning, and bracing her arms against the heavens.

Quickly, Anna lunged forward, and planted her lips on Fred's, letting go after only about half a second, but it was enough. The big chair fell over backwards, and Fred Dukes was out cold. Anna could feel his power, and his thoughts filling her as she looked down at his body. He'd be back up in just a few minutes, of course, but for the first time since Cory's death, she'd begun to think, just once, that her powers were something of an inconvenience at times...

* * *

To be continued...


	7. X Institute 7: Proteus

The Xavier Institute Neo

Issue 7

"Proteus"

* * *

Logan rang the bell at the hotel's front desk once. When no one showed up, he rang it again, harder. Still nothing. At last, Logan raised one hand, balled up into a fist, and was just about to bring it down hard on the bell when someone rushed forward from one of the doors at the sides of the room. He was dressed in ordinary business casual attire and he had a plastic name-tag colored gold and black across from his shirt pocket.

"S-sir?" the man asked, clearly terrified.

"Hey, chief." Logan said, "Nice to see ya. Look, me and the kids need a room for a couple days..."

As Logan said that, he gestured back with his thumb towards the couches at the entrance, where Jubilation, Scott and Piotr were seated. Kurt was standing very close by, trying to engage in small talk with Piotr. It wasn't working.

"I... I... am not certain we can accommodate you." the man said, "Our rooms are fu..."

"Ya still got plenty of keys on that wall there." Logan noted, causing the small man to wince.

"We... um... are having..."

"Look, we got money and you've got rooms. Let's quit beating around the bush, huh bub?"

"Sir, no one else will want to stay here if I let you in."

Of course, Logan knew exactly what the terrified man meant. He was referring to Kurt. As kind and gentle as Kurt Wagner was, his daemonic appearance would almost certainly scare off any tenants who learned of his presence there. For a moment, Logan wasn't sure what to do. He was an expert in fighting and intimidation, and he was no slouch in the planning department, but that guy was a rare occurrence; somebody who was standing up to Logan in spite of his fear over someone else. That meant that trying to terrify the guy would be a major mistake. It'd just make him even less cooperative.

"Just a minute." Logan said, then thought "What now, Chuck?"

"I'd rather not use anymore of my powers today if it can be helped." Charles replied with his thoughts, "If nothing else, the money issue is taken care of. If you have to, you can rent out a few of the other rooms too."

Logan sighed, then turned to face the desk clerk again, and said, "Look buddy, if you're worried about cash, then how about this. If anybody leaves thanks to us, we pay you the difference. Good enough for you?"

"They... might never come back." the man tried to offer as an excuse, but Logan was leaning against the front desk pretty soon with a grin, saying, "Fine, but I kinda figured super heroes like us'd be more welcome in a place like this."

"S-super heroes...?" the man asked, his suspicion quickly growing, even as his terror faded, "You mean that you are American super-heroes?"

"Nah. International." Logan replied, "I'm from Canada, Piotr's Russian, Kurt's from Germany... The other two are from the states though."

"Are... are you certain that you're...?" the man ask curiously, at which point Logan exclaimed, "Hey! Piotr! Show the man your super-hero stuff."

Piotr seemed a little surprised to be singled out for a task like that, but it did make sense. After all, his was the power least likely to blow things to pieces, which wouldn't be terribly creepy. He quickly stepped forward, transforming as he did so into an eight-foot giant made of metal as strong as titanium. The man working for the hotel was amazed as, with Piotr's permission, he felt the young man's smooth, metallic skin, and looked up into his reflective eyes.

"You... you know..." the man said, "If I could just tell people that you are super-heroes, it wouldn't matter if you really were or not."

"Smart move." Logan remarked, with only a slight sarcastic overtone to the comment.

"Please..." the man said after taking a few moments to think about it, "Take this key, and this one, and this. These will be your rooms."

"Three rooms?" Logan asked, a little suspicious.

"Our rooms each have two beds." the man said, "Two are for the men and one for the young lady."

"Lady?" Jubilation asked, sitting upright, and looking around to be certain he was really talking about her. She'd never in her life been referred to as a lady. Before coming to the Xavier Institute, Jubilation had been referred to, at best, as "that brat," or "that crazy kid." At worst, she'd been accused of being a danger to society and compared to the devil on numerous occasions. They'd been titles she hadn't been able to escape, and even at the school, most people only called her "Jubilation" or "Jubes" in the case of a few of the kids. Jubilation Lee had no class and no manners. She was a simple, flippant, American teenager. Calling her a "lady" was almost like calling Godzilla a "Princess," and yet... and yet...

And yet, deep down inside, it felt good to hear it. In fact, it felt so good that Jubilation quickly smothered the negative feeling as she stood up to follow the others to their new rooms.

"Here's your key." Logan said, tossing it to Jubilation. Of course, Jubilation failed to catch it, and had to pick it up off the floor, but she couldn't really bring herself to feel as angry about it as she normally would have, and when she saw the room that was going to be hers and hers alone, her existing angst began to truly dissipate for the first time in as long as she could remember.

* * *

Charles Xavier had needed several hours to fully recover from the deep, negative impulses that Betsy Braddock had sent his way, but it hadn't taken him even as much as seven seconds to realize that her therapy would undoubtedly be a long and exhaustive process.

As the barrier around the room rose up, and the one around Betsy's cage came down, Xavier carefully opened his mind again, his full defenses at the ready. Betsy seemed to recognize him in her thoughts, though she still screamed, the same way she had before. She was feeling cautious and suspicious of him, as well as deeply afraid, which was very natural at that stage. Xavier carefully announced his presence mentally, and she reacted by pulling back slightly before relaxing a bit.

"I can feel the anguish of what has happened to you in the past." Xavier said, opening yet another section of his mind to her, showing Betsy how he had been prepared for war when he entered the army, and how that had helped him, in time, to learn to face even the most horrible thoughts calmly. However, as Xavier did that, Betsy responded with frightening intelligence, feeding the thoughts right back to him, outlining every person who'd mistreated him in that time, and every unjust action that he had himself committed. It was sobering. With his next message to Betsy, Xavier told her that a healthy perspective could enable one to survive even the worst knowledge, but Betsy, in turn, would turn around and not merely tell him that a negative side existed to all of those things, but show him that side, and the intense emotion she felt regarding it. Xavier wasn't certain he could come up with an answer for that. Betsy was very much a pessimist, and Xavier an optimist. It was difficult to relate.

Maybe that was the reason he'd hesitated to read the minds of others intentionally in the past. Sometimes, Charles Xavier had a hard time stepping outside of his own thoughts and opinions and listening to the views of others. Regrets were almost a constant companion for him, but as far as letting other people's opinions penetrate his mind, Xavier had been rather slow in many instances. It was one of the reasons he'd avoided Moira for so long.

Professor Xavier had leveled light, inoffensive mental scans at Betsy several times over the course of the past minute, but if there was anything in her mind but grief and despair, she was concealing it intentionally. He felt lost for a few moments as he probed just a little deeper, but Betsy seemed to block the deeper probes off before they could get close enough to her to learn anything useful. He felt very much rejected when she did that, because he couldn't be completely sure what she really thought of him. The fact that Betsy Braddock was letting the professor get so close, mentally, was a good sign, of course, but she seemed to have seen something in his thoughts that she didn't like, and set up mental blockades to keep him out of sensitive areas of her mind. It was daunting.

Xavier opened his eyes sadly to look at the shrieking girl, but when he actually did look at her, he saw something new. It was so obvious, and yet, it had never occurred to him before... The professor had been trying so hard to bring Betsy back to an understanding of reality and her powers, because he'd assumed that she'd absorbed the thoughts of others and gone into shock from that, but it wasn't shock at all. Betsy's mind was powerful enough to grasp and cope with the visions she was seeing without weakening even in the slightest. It wasn't that her mind had been broken by the visions she'd seen, so much as tenderized. Betsy had seen memories of lives spent in struggle, worry, greed and sin, and had lost hope. Even her shrieking, and her recent mental blockades spoke of a person who felt miserable; thinking that her trust had been badly betrayed, so she didn't dare to expose herself to the misery experienced by people ever again.

When he'd arrived at that realization, Xavier knew the tack he had to take. He didn't like being rough on Betsy, but she'd decided to avoid contact with people at all cost, to keep from getting hurt, and that meant that he needed to drive home to her a very basic lesson about hurt that her parents had been negligent in teaching her.

* * *

Xavier again found himself in the domain of the mind, drifting through the stray thoughts around Betsy's consciousness, most of which were dark memories that she didn't know how to dispel. The professor saw the thoughts plainly as he drifted forward, to find Betsy's defenses rising up again to block him off, but when that happened, he lashed out hard with the same weapon that she had been using; pain. Images flowed into Betsy's mind against her will of the man named Cain Marko; the cruel, jealous bully he'd been, the many things he'd done in Xavier's childhood, in his teenage years, and when both of them went to war. Betsy saw Cain's rebirth as the Juggernaut and how he'd returned and attacked Xavier and his students, in the end being defeated by Xavier himself, who'd been forced to tamper with his thoughts in order to stop him, and through it all, she saw the intense, personal pain that Xavier had been under, and for a moment, her defenses faded.

"This is the pain that I have felt!" Xavier exclaimed, sadness and grief leaking out from the peace and care he'd previously shown her, "It is this that drives the misery in my own life; the worry, the despair... Your misery is of a different sort, because you have absorbed the pain and misery of others, but you would not have been so upset by that if you were not truly a good person inside. Open your thoughts to me, and let us be together in our collective pain!"

Then, Betsy truly did open her thoughts to Xavier, and he felt them surround him like an enormous, dark cloak, encroaching on his mind like a foul-tasting poison. Soon Xavier was surrounded by memories not her own of teachers who'd endured curses, fury, and in many cases assault simply for doing their jobs, children who were so miserable with their lot in life that they saw it only as imprisonment, men who'd been turned into killers because of some misplaced sense of patriotism, or been blamed for lies that were only the fault of misinformation given to them, and their lives had fallen into ruin as a result. The thoughts surrounded Xavier's mental presence like black dust or smoke, each particle stinging as it touched him. The thoughts were the very kind of thoughts he'd needed to work so hard to ignore, and they were real things; not simple pessimism. As the thoughts crowded in around Xavier, he heard a voice at last, resonating through them all; speaking from the darkness.

"You wanted to share in my pain, Charles Xavier, and let me share in yours? For me, there's nothing to be lost from such an attempt. I have enough misery now, that one more person's sadness will do me an insignificant amount of harm. Still, I wonder if you realize just what you're asking for... I'm not just one little girl anymore, Xavier. I'm the thoughts and feelings of a hundred thousand men, women and children, who were born, lived, and died in futility and misery, dreaming of higher goals, but never reaping their rewards, or getting any closer to achieving them, and in many cases, never working towards them at all. I've seen everything about my country that was hopeless, lost and despairing, and I've gained the wisdom from the thoughts of those people, to know what's truly so horrible about that. If you really want to know me, you'd be better off knowing them first; all of them, all at once, just like I did, but if after all that, you can ever bring yourself to look at another human being, I might speak with you again."

"No!" Xavier exclaimed, not entirely certain what he should do as the vile, tainted voice all around him began to fade, "Don't shut me out, and don't impose such limitations! Let me see what makes you so miserable! Let me share in it, and comfort you!"

"Very well." the voice said without feeling, "But remember; you were the one who asked me for this."

* * *

As soon as she'd felt the sharp blast of force coming from within the soundproof chamber, Moira had brought up the shielding around Betsy's cell, and lowered it around the surrounding chamber, then rushed to the door to open it and ran forward, ignoring the wailing of the little girl who'd involuntarily become the avatar of all the misery of her country, but when she saw what had happened, she froze. A deep cut had been made in the walls of the room that reached out into several other adjacent rooms in that section of Muir Island, as if someone had torn it open with a scything blade, and Xavier was lying on the floor, his wheelchair tipped over, screaming madly; his eyes seeing nothing...

It took Moira a moment to realize that alarms were going off all around her, after seeing that.

* * *

Raven had rushed for Fred Dukes' room the moment she'd heard the crashing sound, and found the normally-invincible teenager on the floor, unconscious. He was breathing, but nothing she did could wake him.

"Dammit!" Raven exclaimed furiously, "If Anna did this, I'm going to... I'm going to..."

For the first time since she'd revealed her true nature to Anna, however, Raven didn't know what she wanted to do, or rather, what she could do. Anna's powers were already so far above her own that the very idea of trying to punish her in any way for anything she did was almost laughable, and for a mother to be an effective authority figure, they need to be able to say when no means no. Already, it seemed that even if Anna acquired the powers of Professor Xavier, the chances were slim that she'd listen to what Raven wanted. Raven was furious and terrified. She'd hoped that giving Anna a little time away from battle would convince her that Raven really wanted what was best for all mutants. In fact, the opposite had turned out to be true. Anna had only drifted further and further away from what Raven needed her to be as time had passed. To Raven, it had seemed for so long like the ascent of mutants to power on Earth had been her only goal, but all she'd really accomplished with Anna had been ensuring that mutants would never completely die out. Anna seemed to want nothing to do with her mission, and if what she suspected was true, she was becoming so focused on her own desires, that she didn't even care if she got in Raven's way.

"She'd better not have held onto him for very long." Raven muttered angrily as she watched the large, heavy teenager at her feet breathing deeply in unconsciousness.

* * *

Kurt and Scott inevitably wound up in the same room, and each unpacked their things relatively silently. It wasn't that they didn't want company; just that each was a little shy around others, and not eager to expose themselves to other people, though for opposite reasons. Kurt's fear of being hurt by others was a fairly common one. Scott's fear of hurting others, on the other hand, was far less common, but no less potent. Each had unpacked virtually everything they'd brought with them before either of them even thought of speaking to the other. Reacting to what others said was so much easier than saying something yourself, but in the end, it was Kurt's faith that urged him to speak first. Even if Scott did wind up hurting his feelings, God would still be there for him.

"Why did you join us, Scott?" Kurt asked, sitting on his bed, and facing Scott's direction, "Did you really think that Professor Xavier would be in danger here?"

"I wouldn't feel right staying behind." Scott replied a little too quickly, "Everybody else has plans, or dreams, or hobbies..."

"And you do not?"

"My only hobbies are study and exercise." Scott said a little sadly, "I get a rush from learning new things and accomplishing new feats with my body, that makes it easy for me to enjoy those things, but I don't really have any long-term dreams of my own, and I certainly don't have your kind of imagi... your kind of faith."

Kurt tried not to take offense at what Scott had been about to say as he tried again to determine why the other boy had come along, in the end.

"You have no dreams of your own, so you just follow others around, and do as you are expected, or do you just try to go where the excitement is?"

Scott looked a little confused by Kurt's question at first, but finally, he said, "I guess I am attracted to excitement, despite all the problems it's given me in the past, but when that was all I had, I felt like I was living pointlessly and aimlessly, whenever I wasn't enjoying myself. I didn't have a dream. Even now, the dream I have, that makes me feel better about myself isn't mine..."

"It's Professor Xavier's dream." Kurt concluded with a smile that showed his well-brushed teeth, "You believe in his dream just as much as he does."

"Yes." Scott admitted, letting himself smile a little, "I guess it may be a little weird to be following someone else's dream instead of your own, but..."

Kurt however, shook his head, causing Scott's unfinished sentence to fade away into nothingness.

"As long as you truly believe in it, it is your dream, whether you thought it up on your own or not. I do not regret the fact that others believed in love, honesty and justice before me. I glory in it. It is sometimes discouraging that their philosophy is not universal, but knowing that it was good enough for others often makes my faith all the more delightful. When there is a legacy behind a belief, having faith in that belief can be so much easier."

"Yeah..." Scott replied, "Yeah, you're right."

"Then there are times when the circumstances of your life make it impossible for you to completely follow the ways that others have." Kurt said sadly, "In those instances, you may need to allow your actions to vary from theirs, even if your values remain the same..."

"Is this about what Logan said this afternoon about Kevin McTaggert?" Scott asked, curiously.

"I have been unable to stop thinking about it since then." Kurt admitted, however, looking away sadly, "The very idea of a being whose power centers around seizing and murdering hostages would be a nightmare to fight, because it would force whoever fights it to cross a moral line..."

For a short time, both boys were silent. Kurt's thoughts strayed back to vivid images of the being that acted to force people to choose between murder and death. It terrified him."

"Could you kill" Kurt asked aloud "to save those you care about?"

Scott remained silent for a while, but it was clear he was thinking about it.

"I don't think people have the right to kill each other." Scott said at last, "Putting people in prison may give them the chance to think better of their past actions and turn their lives around, but death is forever."

"That is not what I asked." Kurt insisted, determined to get an answer of some kind out of Scott, "Would you kill to save your own life? Would you kill to save the life of someone else you held dear if you truly had no other choice?"

Scott was silent again for another few seconds, but he finally said "I don't think so, Kurt. I've fought people before when my life was at stake, but even when that happened, I don't really think I was all that afraid of dying. Maybe I just don't know enough to be afraid of death, but I'm not sure I can accept a fear like that just yet, and if I can't accept the fear of death, I can't kill because of it."

Kurt wasn't sure what to say at first, but he sort of understood what Scott meant. It took a lot of courage to be afraid.

When he came to that realization, Kurt decided to test his own courage. He knew that if nothing else, Scott was both honorable and trustworthy, which meant that he was the best person to trust with the contents of the box.

Quickly, Kurt reached into his suitcase to retrieve the last item contained therein; a long, thin, wooden box kept closed with two hinges on one side, and a buckle on the other. Kurt dragged it onto his bed and opened it up as Scott watched, intrigued and a little worried. Then, he turned the box around, so that Scott could see its contents; a long, thin sword designed with two sharp edges, and a curved wrist guard like a rapier.

"I have little money." Kurt said to Scott, "When I spend some of it, I only do so if I believe the item that I am purchasing will help me to protect what I care about. Even if I never use this sword myself, it has already served its purpose, because it reminds me that I have the courage needed to protect the people I care about, and that it is right to do so, when insisting on pacifism will only cause more people to get hurt."

"Of course, I'm almost certain the others would not understand," Kurt said sadly, "so I must ask you not to tell others about this revelation I've made, or about the sword, except for Logan. He definitely knows already, but has respected my privacy."

Scott looked a little surprised by what Kurt had shown him, but it didn't take him more than a few seconds to respond.

"Sure, Kurt. Your secret's safe with me, but why tell me? I mean, you must have had this sword for a while. Why let me know right now?"

"Because I have recently needed to test my courage. I have been afraid ever since I acquired the sword that others would find out about it, and try to take it from me." Kurt explained gradually, his expression growing more serious, "Scott, you must know even better than I do that our mutant powers can be used quite easily as lethal weapons. In some cases, they're weapons more effective than any made by the hands of ordinary humans, and because of that, if we are responsible enough not to misuse our powers, then there is no weapon that we cannot use responsibly. That is what I believe. This is why I trust myself, and why, I believe, others should trust me, to possess a sword. Still, I do not believe that everyone would agree with my reasoning, and that's why I am afraid of others learning about this weapon of mine. I knew that if I could not brave that fear, I could never face the fear of losing my life, or the life of someone I cared about. That is why I told you about it, Scott. I wanted reassurance that I had the courage to take action when I was afraid. Thank you for allowing me to find that without suffering a loss, or punishment from it."

"Um... You're welcome." Scott said, otherwise at a loss for words as Kurt closed the sword case and slid it under his bed.

* * *

The security team had arrived to seal up the wall breaches with molten steel not long after the alarms went off, but just as they arrived at the scene, and started setting up their machines in front of the crack in the wall, smoke and bright red energy flew forth from the hole, developing contours, and refining into a physical-looking shape, which knocked the sealing equipment over, and seized Henry Cerrelu around his entire body like a humongous hand. The others dove for cover as the fiery smoke vanished, and Henry fell to the floor, rising to his feet swiftly, as if being lifted by invisible hands, an insane smile plastered across his face, and a malevolent look in his eyes.

"Yeah..." Henry said, smiling, "Yeah, that's a start. Say, were you guys trying to plug that hole there?"

None of the other members of the security team spoke. Each was terrified, and some were trembling. They were facing the worst possible eventuality.

"Yeah, I thought so." Henry, or rather, the being that was controlling him said, "Oh, well. Some people are just jerks, I guess."

Suddenly, the entire section of the ceiling in Muir Island came down with a crash, and in moments more, Kevin Mctaggert's new body rose up into the air, passing through the ceiling of the Muir Island detention areas, and several rooms after that, until he was back out in the open air, floating high above the place where he'd been held captive for so long and remarked, once more; "Yeah... Yeah, that's a start."

* * *

As much as she hated to do it, after he'd gone out of his way to help her, Moira had to leave Xavier where he was for a while as she dealt with a matter far more important than any sick girl in need of help. The military referred to it as "Muir Island Omega Eventuality," which meant the escape of the most dangerous inhabitant of Muir Island; Kevin McTaggert. Kevin's homicidal escapades the first time had been the worst thing that Moira had ever gone through, and the thought of going through it all over again was her worst fear. It had been for all those years since Kevin's capture. As much as Moira knew that it was Kevin who'd decided, again and again, to kill, she couldn't help but fear that maybe some part of it was her fault, not for giving birth to him, but for falling for a man like Joe McTaggert. She'd been so blinded by his poetic way with words, and his past accomplishments, that she hadn't seen the kind of person he was from the start. If Kevin had had someone else to look after him; a father who actually cared about his son, he might have been raised to be a good man, determined to use his powers only to help people, and he might have single-handedly become the savior of mankind, but Moira couldn't have known from the start how things would turn out, and she certainly couldn't travel back in time and change them, as urgently as she wanted to. It was chaos in the Muir Island research facility for nearly fifteen minutes once people discovered that the security team sent to seal up the broken walls had vanished, and communications had been sent to the local military by the installation's computers. Moira had questions to answer, plans to make, and people to organize just to keep the place from falling down around her ears before she could even think about setting up an effort to find and recapture Kevin, and by that point, it became obvious that Kevin was no longer on or around Muir Island, which meant that with his powers, he could be anywhere...

The moment she'd realized that locating Kevin was going to be a problem, Moira put the military generals she'd been on the phone with for a while on hold, and rushed back to check on Xavier, who was no longer screaming, but still seemed unintelligible. Moira was more terrified than ever then, because Xavier showed no signs of responding to her when she addressed him, which meant that pleas to help her find her son would probably fall on deaf ears too. Regardless, she helped Xavier back into his wheelchair, and quickly wheeled him out of Betsy's chamber, not sure what else to do. Whatever she was going to do, it had to be done in a hurry, or more people would wind up dead, but Xavier didn't seem to be responding to her hurried words, so instead, she swiftly made arrangements with the generals she had on the phone for the implementation of one of the secondary cage protocols; which meant that several of the metal cages the military had for that purpose were going to be loaded onto helicopters. The problem was, before they could take action against Kevin, they needed to know where he was, and the easiest way to do that, Moira knew, was to wake Xavier.

"Charles," Moira said at last, kneeling down on the floor in front of him, so that she could look into his eyes, "I'm not a psychic mutant like you. I dinnae have special powers to sense the things that go on around me in other people's thoughts, so I have no idea what ye've seen, or what Betsy did to yeh. All I can say is that ye're not like her, Charles. Ye're not a little girl, ye're a man, and ye're no slave to yuir thoughts. Ye're their master. Yeh know how to dispel any thoughts that get in yuir way, Charles, so use that knowledge. Please, put those thoughts in their place and come back... Help us."

For several seconds, it seemed that Moira's words had had no impact upon professor Xavier, but after about half a minute had passed, Xavier's eyes began to dart towards Moira, then towards the floor, then up at the ceiling, then back at Moira again, and in about three minutes, he opened his mouth and spoke once more.

"Th-thank you, Moira. If not for your help, I… I might have been lost forever."

"Can you help us, Charles?" Moira asked, getting to her feet slowly, "Kevin's gotten oot, and I need yuir to help us track him down."

Xavier looked horrified when he heard that news, but he replied quickly, saying, "Moira, I realize that every moment counts when it comes to Kevin, but I'm afraid I won't be much use for the next few minutes. The ordeal with Betsy was too taxing. My powers are too weak, and my concentration is erratic at best."

"I can't ask you to do the impossible, Charles," Moira admitted, her voice full of worry as she spoke to him, "But as soon as you can, please tell me where he is..."

Xavier just nodded, his whole body trembling.

* * *

Within fifteen minutes, Charles Xavier had sensed Kevin's presence around the suburbs near Ruthven, which was several dozen miles inland from where Muir Island was. Of course, the cages could be on site in only a few minutes if dispatched from the right facility, but if Kevin tried to escape, Xavier might be needed again. When Moira headed out to supervise the recapturing on the supersonic military jet she'd been provided with for quick transport in just such a situation, she insisted on taking Xavier with her, and he, in turn, had recognized the terrible danger, and remembering his promises to his students, had insisted on taking the X-men.

Naturally, Moira was the only person involved in the process who knew of Xavier's involvement in locating Kevin. Everybody else just seemed to think that she had some kind of machine that could locate him by a homing device, or by his DNA, or some such thing. In reality, such methods would never have worked, because Kevin had no physical DNA to detect, and could easily have melted any homing device, but if anyone had been able to jump to those conclusions, they never let on about it. As far as they knew, Xavier was just a good friend of Moira, who she didn't want to let out of her sight during the investigation.

To Kurt, the trip across the country had been a complete surprise, and it was quite likely they'd all be headed into horrible danger, but despite the impending threat, and perhaps even a terrible fight that they might have on their hands, there was a part of him that was a little bit happy. Professor Xavier's hesitation to offer the X-men the chance to go with him when the situation would be dangerous had been an obstacle to their success in the past, and it was, despite the circumstances, refreshing to see that changed. Maybe, Kurt thought, there really was a chance that the X-men could be superheroes, like the Fantastic Four or Spider-man. Those guys went out of their way to do the right thing and help people, no matter how tough the situation became, and it was just a little easier to tolerate his physical appearance and his worries if Kurt thought of himself in that light. Of course, superheroes never killed, which was a little harder to take, not because Kurt wanted to kill anyone, but because he was almost certain that Logan had killed people in the past; maybe even lots of people. If there was a "no killers" rule stretched across the title of superhero, the X-men would have to leave Logan behind, which Kurt wouldn't have done for any title on Earth, even if he'd been asked to be the next pope.

"No matter what," Kurt thought silently as they approached their new destination, "I couldn't give up my new friends. Even the ones I don't really like. To give up on them would be like giving up on God himself. Perhaps the high profile of a superhero is a curse in disguise, if one must leave behind the ones who need their help the most."

However, Kurt's contemplation ended as the jet gave a short bump, sliding to a stop outside of Ruthven.

The plane had been traveling with limited noise and friction, just as it had been designed to the whole way, but when it came to a stop, it revealed yet another feature; it had radar and sonic detection devices built into it. The pilot's primary job up to that point, in fact, had been to try to pick up Kevin on the sonic sensors, just so that he could maintain a safe distance from the decidedly dangerous mutant.

At that point, they could all see the small blip on what definitely looked like a radar screen, but was, according to the pilot, only sensing the vast levels of energy that Kevin was pushing out at all times. It certainly looked like Kevin was just wandering this way and that, through the range of the sensors, maybe doing nothing, or maybe doing all kinds of horrible things. There was no way to be sure. Scott seemed a little afraid as the group watched the blip go about its business, but Xavier was far more nervous, and Moira looked petrified as she went, more than once, into the back room of the craft, to use the lower-bandwidth radio they had back there. To judge from her posture, and the look on her face, things on the front lines weren't going well...

* * *

Years before, Kevin's biggest weakness, like that of most enemies, had been bullets. No one could see the bullets being fired from guns, and what Kevin couldn't see, he couldn't control. However, he seemed to have grown considerably faster in reacting to attacks, because the bullets hadn't been outside the gun nozzles of the soldiers for more than a moment before Kevin would vanish from where he was, and walls of solid bedrock started to form around the soldiers, closing them in, and getting tighter and tighter.

* * *

"...got the shot."

"You sure?"

"I'm taking it."

"God help us all if you miss, John."

The soft hiss of a silenced pistol, then, with even greater clarity...

"Dammit! Where'd he go?"

"Look out!"

"Oh, Goahhah!"

* * *

Kurt flinched hard at the sound of bones being crushed under tons of rock. The screams of dying men echoed through his soul and he found that as great as the danger was, he couldn't take it anymore.

"Himmel in the highest!" Kurt exclaimed, furious, "Enough is enough! I will listen to no more of this!"

"Huh?" Jubilation asked, no idea what he was talking about.

"No more of what, Kurt?" Scott asked, truly curious.

"Aw, crap..." Logan muttered, his eyes widening as Kurt reached into his suitcase and pulled out the long, slender box which only Scott recognized by sight, "You... heard all that?"

"Ja." Kurt replied, fury still all over his face, tucking the box under one arm, "I know where he is, and I can get there the fastest. It will tire me, but... I can take one of you with me."

"Then take me!" Piotr exclaimed, "I am his weakness. With my metal body..."

"Only if his host has been killed already." Kurt replied, "If he sees you before then, you are dead."

"I'm goin'." Logan said, "Take me. I'm a good soldier, like you."

Kurt gave a brief, meaningful nod, just as the other three X-men got up, not sure what to say, but Xavier was the one who spoke.

"Kurt, I know you want to do something, but the danger is too great. We can't just..."

"I know what I cannot do, professor." Kurt said, his anger returning, "I cannot sit in a parked stealth aircraft like a coward, while men die by the dozens who my power might have saved."

"Kid's a man now, Charlie." Logan said with a mischievous smile, "The rest of ya can follow if you think you're up to it."

Then, just like that, Logan put one hand on Kurt's shoulder, and both vanished in a burst of smoke, a trail of such bursts appearing and fading only a moment later across the countryside.

Charles Xavier watched the bursts go, angry with himself for how everything had turned out, but he wasn't sure who he was angrier at; Kurt for running off like that, into almost certain death, or himself, for not being able to follow...

* * *

The sight that Kurt saw as soon as he arrived within view of the battle was dizzying and horrifying. It would have been, even if he hadn't expended so much of his x-force to travel across such a long distance. Kurt could see the green plains in the center of the location, and the cloudless, blue skies overhead, but everything else in his range of vision was an image from the darkest tale of horror. The hills surrounding the plains were small, and their grass was covered in a mass of red and brown. Kurt could see the center of the plain decorated with a giant, golden pyramid, steps leading up to the top of it, where a massive plateau of golden bricks, clearly crafted by the will of Kevin bore a gold throne, encrusted with jewels. Kurt found the whole sight hideous in its bloodthirsty and intentionally-opulent nature, so used was he to the dogma of self-sacrifice and giving out of love. Sitting on that throne was what looked like a worn, grayed skeleton, as a beautiful woman with long, flowing hair floated through the air in his direction.

"P-please..." the woman muttered in the only kind of voice she could manage, "Don't... Don't do... this..."

"Oh, come on." the skeletal form of Kevin replied, "This is the greatest gift in the world. Once we merge, I will know everything you know, and since I never age, you'll have earned immortality as well. You never know. You might even like it."

As he said that, the woman bent over Kevin, clearly against her will, and Kurt could hear her screaming as her lips met his, and the old host turned to dust upon the golden floor, which quickly faded, so that it would not tarnish his magnificent throne.

Logan cursed once, just quietly enough that no one without enhanced hearing could have heard it, then said in the same tone of voice, "He's showing off. He coulda touched her any way he wanted to, even by leavin' his host for a minute."

"But that would have left him vulnerable." Kurt replied.

"Look around, Kurt." Logan said, and Kurt started looking at Logan in shock. It was the first time Logan had ever called him by his real name, instead of "kid" or "you."

In the end, though, Kurt did look around, and Logan explained, "He's got nothing to worry about. He just mopped the place up with the military, and the closest help's miles away. He wouldn't be vulnerable if he left that guy's body. He'd just being a jerk."

Kurt seemed unsure of what to say to that, but he had another question that he wanted to have answered before he tried to challenge Kevin in any way.

"Kevin is a mutant, like us, is he not?"

"Yeah."

"What are the limits of his x-force?"

Logan looked surprised, but pleased by the question, so he responded quickly.

"He turns the biochemical energy of host bodies into x-force, then uses that. That's why he's unstoppable as long as he's in a host."

"Then, would not the body of a mutant be even more effective?" Kurt asked, horrified.

"Yeah." Logan replied, "The more powerful, the worse he'd be. He could keep drawin' power from a mutant fer months."

Kurt was sorry to hear that, because it meant that there was that much more at stake if either of them failed, but he quickly tossed aside the sword box, and drew the sword out with his left hand, holding it carefully as he waved it back and forth.

"Got any experience with that thing?" Logan asked.

"Not in battle." Kurt admitted, "Would you like to use it?"

"Thanks, Kurt." Logan said, tightening both fists, and Kurt saw Logan's bright, metal claws come out just then in a way that he hardly ever saw, to the point of sometimes forgetting that they were even there, "I think I'll manage, though."

After that, there were a few seconds to plan the attack as Logan and Kurt stood in the shadow of the pyramid before the time came to strike.

* * *

It was, of course, quite true that absorbing a new host gave Kevin access to all of their knowledge, memories and thoughts. He felt with delicious ease the fear that had gone through his victims before the inevitable moment when they'd become one with him; the names and faces of the people closest to them, every wonderful and horrible experience they'd ever gone through, and in particular, the knowledge and higher education that the tragic woman he'd most recently inhabited had spent her life accumulating. Much of it was useless junk about math and science, and some uncertainty thing, but in her thoughts, Kevin also found many amusing stories that he found enjoyable; in particular one about a being named Proteus. Proteus was a god of the sea, charged with living his life bound to some menial task, like taking care of seals or some such thing, Proteus was a god who took many different forms, so that people wouldn't keep coming to him for information about the future. In short, he sought security in bodies other than his own, and that was something that Kevin understood quite well. In fact, he almost felt sympathy for the character. It was a rare feeling in Kevin, and it felt unpleasant, so he decided to start planning his next move instead. He liked the body he was in at that point for some reason, because of its appearance, although he knew it would wear itself out eventually. Still, he wasn't really sure where to go next, or what to do. Would he be able to use the body's power to get across whole oceans? Would he really want to, in the end? Could Kevin rule his homeland with his powers? Could he be a new god for the modern age?

"Yeah..." Kevin said aloud, the first words he'd said in the new, feminine voice he'd acquired, "That's a start."

Just then, Kevin saw the glint of a metal very different from gold coming at him from the side.

* * *

"Gee, that was stupid of you." Kevin said to the frozen mutant with the wild hair and metal claws, "Why else did you think I built this throne, if not to protect me from behind? You've got a lot of nerve though, and you did try to hit me from the side. I could use sneakiness like that, especially since mum seems to have found some way to track me down. Maybe I'll let the girl go, and take you instead..."

As he (or was it she) said that, Kevin reached for Logan's hand, and the woman gasped aloud, scared out of her mind, but in one piece. Kurt still crouched behind the throne for a moment more, until the gold at his feet started to rise up around him, and he had to teleport away. Kevin had learned his location, and his plans the moment he's taken Logan as a host, but worse, he'd know everything that Logan did in only moments, and when he learned about Moira and... Professor Xavier. Like a bullet, words he'd heard just recently rushed through Kurt's head.

"The more powerful, the worse he'd be. He could keep drawin' power from a mutant fer months."

"I could use sneakiness like that, especially since mum seems to have found some way to track me down."

Kurt swallowed hard as he saw Logan's body take off through the air at impossible speeds across the country, towards the place where the jet was, with Xavier in it.

"Professor Xavier is the most powerful mutant I know." Kurt realized silently, "If Kevin takes him... all is lost..."

Then, as quickly as he could, in spite of his exhaustion, Kurt began the long string of teleportations back to the jet.

* * *

Kurt arrived back at the jet within minutes, but the sight he saw filled him with terror, because he knew he was too late. Logan, Scott, Jubilation and the others were all trapped in shackles, hanging from the side of the jet, and Professor Xavier seemed to be standing upright and rubbing his eyes, as if trying to get over being hit with a bright light.

"You never really had a chance, you know." Xavier replied with a cruel smile, "No other mutant can beat me, although, mummy-dearest..." he said as he approached Moira a bit closer, "it was a cruel trick to try."

The sight brought it all back to Kurt. The dreams of his own helplessness, and the horrible thoughts he'd put himself through; thoughts of his friends dying, because he couldn't deliver a killing blow against another man... But Kevin wasn't just going to let Xavier go. As much as Kurt owed Charles Xavier, he knew what he had to do.

Clutching his sword tightly in one hand, Kurt charged forward towards Xavier, then teleported right behind him, and lunged forward...

...Only to find that Xavier had vanished. Kurt's sword flew from his hand, and into the air only a moment later, as he realized just how badly he'd been tricked. Soon, he was on the ground on his back, with Xavier standing over him.

"Idiot." Kevin said in Xavier's voice, "I can use your professor's powers now, too. I can sense you wherever you are, just by your thoughts. You never had a chance against me."

Kurt tried to teleport away again, but something was keeping him in place as Kevin stood over him, his legs on either side of Kurt's, then Kurt looked down through both their legs and saw his sword lying on the ground behind Kevin, and remembered something that Logan had told him about Kevin's powers. As long as he can see it, he can control it. As long as he can see it...

"I could put you up against this wall here with your friends," Kevin debated, "but you'd just be able to teleport out. Oh, well. Guess I'll just have to kill you."

Grinning like the maniac he was, Kevin caused seven stone spikes to rise up out of the ground around him, and descend slowly towards Kurt, when the dark, furry X-man made his move, and suddenly, there was a metal sword sticking out of Xavier's body from behind.

Kurt could feel Kevin's grip on him loosening, and quickly teleported behind him, to grab hold of the sword again. Kevin had been able to see and control all of Kurt's limbs except one; his tail, which had been lying on the ground between his legs. At the last moment, the end of Kurt's tail had grabbed the sword and stabbed him from behind, even before he could react. It was the only way Kurt could have claimed victory, but it came at a high price.

Xavier fell forward, off the blade of the sword at the moment of death, as the nebulous energy force that was Kevin's true form separated from it involuntarily. Quickly, Kurt rammed the sword into the ground, trapping the hideously-convulsing Kevin where he was. The metal of the sword had disrupted Kevin's ability to use his powers, and that would remain the case until he could be recaptured in an actual enclosure. Quickly, Kurt began teleporting the others out of their bonds as Scott stared angrily at the being who'd killed Xavier. Piotr stood over the professor with a truly saddened look on his face, like a silent guardian. Jubilation didn't know what to think, but in a way, she felt just as bad about what had happened as anyone else there.

* * *

Betsy Braddock had tried to fool herself into thinking she'd won some kind of victory over Xavier at first, but then, if that had been the case, why had she gone out of her way to conceal the crack in her cell from others? Why not just remain in that tiny place for the rest of her life? What was there left in the world for her to learn?

When Xavier had regained his senses a relatively short time after his encounter with her, it had filled her with surprise and awe. Though he'd been shocked by the thoughts that she'd shared with him, he clearly had the skill needed to deal with them, which meant that, contrary to her own previous assumptions, that skill existed. As much of a pessimist as Betsy had been since her mutant powers had first manifested, she couldn't ignore what Xavier had accomplished. When he'd told her that he wanted to share in her pain, she'd given him copies of every thought she'd absorbed, and he, in turn, had managed to deal with it. He was an older man. He had more experience, but, she realized, if Xavier could use his powers in that way, so could she, if only she knew how...

The dark thoughts still circled around Betsy's consciousness as she struggled to find the method that Xavier had used, but that was when she heard the thoughts of his students returning, and in their thoughts, lay the realization that Charles Xavier was dead.

Betsy wasn't too surprised by that, considering the monster that he'd gone to face. It surprised her far more to note that the monster had been vanquished, in fact, and was being brought back to Muir Island in a metal prison. It didn't mean much to her, though. All that mattered was that Charles Xavier could no longer teach her the secret technique he'd used to dispel the dark thoughts, so she lapsed into despair again, until she heard the thoughts of Moira McTaggert; the very woman who'd done Betsy such a favor by giving her that protective booth to live in.

"Charles! Come on! Don't quit, Charles! Ye've got more in yeh than that!"

Then, Betsy heard the thoughts of Xavier's other students, each yearning for the professor to pull through; even the two who were far less inclined to be optimistic, and that was when Betsy made the big, responsible decision that her foolish parents hadn't trained her to make. She left her body and traveled, invisibly, to Xavier's bedside, where Moira was struggling to keep him alive with medication, patches and bandages... It wouldn't work. A sword had been driven through Xavier's stomach. There was, Betsy realized, only one way that Xavier could be brought back.

Quickly, Betsy took action, using the very power that she'd used not long ago to put a gash in solid metal. She felt the severed blood vessels and tendons, and the cells of Xavier's organs, which had been divided from one another, and with slow, delicate, telekinetic impulses, the cells began to move back towards one another. In and out, back and forth, Betsy's power moved, stroking its way gently through the damaged cells like the slowly-flapping wings of a butterfly, and then, when she could see that Xavier's soul was just about to leave his body, Betsy put a swift pressure on his chest and released it. In a flash, Xavier was awake, his eyes open and his breathing rapid and unreliable. Still, he was alive again, and a combination of Moira's medicine and the natural healing of time could do the rest. At the very least, his mighty brain was quite back to normal.

"Come to me, Xavier..." Betsy said into his thoughts the very moment he woke up, "I've shared with you my most powerful thoughts. Now, share your thoughts with me again."

Xavier, however, didn't respond as he lay back in the hospital bed, trying to relax as Moira and the others smiled delightedly at him. He had a lot of healing to do before he'd be ready for Betsy again.

* * *

Xavier was in bed for a few days after having been brought back to life, and had had enough time to thank Kurt for what he'd done. It was a very strange feeling to Kurt, being thanked for killing somebody in front of all their friends, and he was pretty sure it would never happen to him that way again, which was all to the good.

However, Kurt got something else that he'd never expected, nor dared to hope for as he sat on the ceiling of his hotel room, reading a book one day, soon after the incident. There was a knock on the door, so Kurt quickly let go of the ceiling, to balance on his tail before landing the floor with a soft thud.

"Mister Wagner?"

Of course, whoever it was had pronounced his name wrong, but he didn't really mind, so Kurt just quickly opened the door, and to his surprise and shock, the man standing before him was a very high-ranking military leader. Kurt could see that the man was dressed in his uniform, as if going to a formal ceremony. The man was gray-haired around the edges, but the hair on the top of his head was still brown, and he had a look of surprise on his face as he stared at Kurt in awe, and perhaps a bit of dismay.

"You're a mutant as well..." the general realized aloud, to which Kurt felt obliged to reply.

"I am. I am Kurt Wagner. Might I inquire as to your name?"

"My apologies." the general said, "You gave me quite a scare there, for a moment. My name is General Benjamin Stone, and I've been trying to determine for a while who it was that eventually stopped Kevin McTaggert. Moira tells me that Charles Xavier had something to do with helping to track him down, and he mentioned you..."

"Yes." Kurt said, hesitating for only a moment before replying honestly, with a very severe expression, "I was the one who drove a sword through Xavier's chest when Kevin inhabited his body. In doing so, I stopped Kevin, and nearly killed the Professor. I will not disguise that, because if placed in the same situation again, I would make the same decision."

The general looked a little surprised to hear such a mature reply from such a young boy, but he spoke only a moment later with sternness in his own voice as well, "Tell me the truth, Mister Wagner. As a mutant yourself, did Kevin's powers have any effect on you?"

"He would have killed me with them had I not struck him down." Kurt replied, "The danger was great, but too many were dying. I could not sit back, and..."

At that point, however, the general smiled a satisfied smile, and Kurt could feel that he didn't need to say anymore.

"You know, I first found out that you were a mutant as I was standing right here in this doorway a few seconds ago. I think if I'd found that out before arriving here, I might not have come. I'd have been worried you'd be like Kevin."

"Even among humans, there are lunatics and criminals, sir," Kurt explained sadly, "and it is they who get the attention."

"I can see that now." the general replied, "Having met you, and talked to you, I can see you're one of the finest soldiers I've ever met, despite your age, and that's why I'm honored to present you..."

Quickly, the general dug something out of his pocket, and handed it to Kurt, who took it with a befuddled look on his face.

"...with the Jack twin-pistol star of service. It's the highest honor of courage and decisiveness that the armed forces of the United Kingdom can offer to a civilian, first earned by the masked fighter Union Jack during his days as a member of the Invaders. Yours has your name written on it."

"It... it..." Kurt could barely speak as he held the precious medal in his hands. It was far more than he could ever have hoped for.

"One more thing, however." the general said, "Though the idea of any of this happening again fills me with mortal terror, there is a chance that it might. If we ever need your assistance in another such crisis..."

Quickly, Kurt straightened up and saluted, then said "My courage will not fail, sir, though I cannot promise that I will not. Today was a close call."

"That's all anyone can ask." the general replied, reaching out his hand to shake Kurt's, "It's been an honor to meet you, Mister Wagner, and I hope to see you again some day."

Then, the general walked off down the hallway again, and Kurt was left, staring dumbfounded at the medal he'd been handed, fascinated and terrified by the great responsibility it signified. The challenge of Kurt's life would be living up to his own standards from that point on.

* * *

Fred Dukes woke up on the floor of his bedroom, though the chair he'd been sitting in seemed to have been removed. The first sight that met his eyes, though, was a pleasant one; the tiny form of Anna, with her visible, insect-like wings, seated with a smirk on the end of his nose. Perhaps, Fred realized, she'd been there the whole time he'd been out, but when his eyes fluttered open, she took flight, expanding back to her normal size, as he lay there on the floor. At that point, Fred could have gotten back up, but his head was too full of images, puzzles and questions. He couldn't bring himself to raise so much as one hand when he was so confused.

"I don't get it." he said to Anna, who was sitting on the ground next to him, staring into his eyes, "Why ain't you scareda me?"

"Huh?" she asked.

"Most girls run when they see me comin'..." he muttered, "Why ain't you scareda me?"

For a moment, Anna opened her mouth, but swiftly closed it again, as tiny electric charges danced back and forth through her eyes, flying into the air in the direction of her ears before dissipating.

"Naw, I mean aside from that..." Fred said, finally gathering up the strength of will to right himself with his arms, "I mean, I ain't exactly a movie-star pretty boy. Why me?"

Anna looked a little sad for a moment, but at last, she said, "'Cause you see stuff about me nobody else sees. 'Cause... We're kinda the same. Ah mean, did you ever think that somebody could come along and love you for who you are, and maybe even take you up in their arms and kiss you, and it'd all be happy ever after from then on?"

"Naw." Fred replied, "I ain't that stupid."

For a moment, there was a pause in the conversation, and then, Anna's mouth opened again, and she continued, "Me either. Ah got these powahs that say nobody can ever get close to me for too long, or else they're dead. Just short contact, and even that's got a price. How many people do you think could put up with that in the world?"

"Probably only a couple..." Fred muttered.

"Both of us got fantastic powahs..." Anna replied, putting one gloved hand on Fred's arm and helping him to his feet, "But they keep us from being... intimate with people, and if we're not gonna be intimate, we may as well not be intimate together... Just so's we don't have to feel too lonely."

"Yeah..." Fred replied, his confusion fading, and a genuine smile appearing on his lips, "I can live with that."

* * *

Sir James Braddock rushed forward as soon as he saw Professor Xavier emerging from the inner chambers of the Muir Island research facility, and was relieved to see that there was a weary smile on the Professor's face.

"Betsy." James said quickly, "Is she...?"

"She's had a hard time, but she should be alright." Xavier said with a smile, "She won't shout at you anymore."

"Oh, thank you!" James exclaimed, then said, "Nothing I could give you could ever equal what you've given me, but nonetheless, I feel I should pay you somehow. Here."

At that point, James shoved a check with quite a number of zeros into Xavier's hands, causing the professor's eyes to widen, despite his exhaustion.

"Mister Braddock..." Xavier said, stunned, "I can't accept..."

"Do not rob me of the chance to express my gratitude to you." James said sternly, "Please. Humor me. Take it."

Xavier looked at the check, then at Braddock, then at the check again, and at last put it in his pocket.

"There is one more thing, however." Xavier said, feeling a little regret creeping up around him, "I've taught your daughter a means of coping with her special abilities, and it seems to be effective so far, but if she's going to live a normal life, she'll need to train in that technique regularly. Now, I suspect that I could communicate with her over long distances if it was truly necessary, but I have a school in America specifically intended to help those with special gifts learn what they need to know for the future, and I think that your daughter would be helped most by enrolling there. That way, she could receive a fine education, and also learn to control her special abilities even better. Will you agree to that?"

"A boarding school in America?" James asked, interested, "Yes... If you think its best, I'll accept that, but I'll want to hear from her regularly. If things work out, I might even be willing to..."

However, just then, Logan came running up, his wild hair looking even more disheveled than normal as he said "Chuck, we've got a problem."

Quickly, Logan handed Xavier a slip of paper a moment later, which Xavier ran his eyes over, and the moment the professor had finished reading the paper, he felt worry grip his heart as well.

"Sir," Xavier said, "May we use the jet you brought us here in for a moment. There's an urgent problem I must attend to."

* * *

To be continued...


	8. X Institute 8: Betrayals

The Xavier Institute Neo

Issue 8

"Betrayals"

* * *

"Ivan! Ivan! Are you there?"

Guba held the phone with trembling hands until he heard the dial tone from the other end. Ivan's phone had stopped functioning.

"I do not like this, Malina." Guba said in Russian with dread in his voice, "Perhaps we should leave this place... hide somewhere else. Whoever has done this has some knowledge of our operations, and if they managed to get information from Ivan, they might have learned who his contacts were."

"It does not matter." Malina replied, "Even if this person knows our location, we have weapons here that can kill any man. We have nothing to fear."

Guba wasn't so sure about that. As well-armed as they were, Ivan's team had been just as well armed. There was no way to be certain that they were safe, which meant the night's take was probably in jeopardy. If he'd been calling the shots, they would have pulled out already, but as terrified as Guba was, he wasn't terrified enough to disobey their employer.

Guba clutched his gun as he sat in that largely-empty building, looking around warily with his back against one of the walls. The metal felt cool and comforting in his hand. It was the sort of gun designed to be able to kill any human quickly with a single bullet, and it was the only true way to be safe from other human beings. After all, when it came down to it, no justice system really worked to protect the innocent, which was why Guba had gotten into crime to begin with; there was always somebody to watch your back.

However, as those thoughts dashed through his mind, Guba heard the clink of metal from behind him, and spun around to find a metal hand grabbing him by the face. The hand was large and well-muscled, and, when Guba fired at its owner, the bullets did nothing. It was, Guba quickly realized, the end.

In only a moment more, Guba was sailing through the air, with a large stack of crates headed in his direction, and soon, he'd blacked out.

Chaos reigned in the factory as Malina and Antonov heard the noise and immediately began firing. They fired for several seconds before realizing that they had no idea what to fire at, or where their attacker was. It seemed that someone had simply crept out of the shadows, flung Guba across the room, and vanished again, and as the two thugs glanced back and forth through the area, Antonov saw a shadow move out of the corner of his eye and fired again, only just barely missing Malina.

"Be careful, you idiot!" Malina exclaimed, and just then, a large, metal hand reached up over the crates behind Malina, grabbing him by the head, and lifting him easily into the air, then flinging him too across the factory floor into unconsciousness.

By that point, Antonov was firing madly. Nothing would pry his finger from the trigger of his automatic gun as the large, metal figure looked at him in disapproval, sparks flying from his chest and face as he slowly walked towards Antonov, seeming to grow larger before Antonov's very eyes. The metal man was inhumanly tall, and powerfully built, and soon, he was only a yard away from Antonov, who was completely out of ammunition. Not only that, but there could no longer be any denying that the man had grown larger as he'd approached. He stood over Antonov; at least three times the thug's height, his head within a yard of the factory ceiling, and said, in a booming voice that echoed through the whole building like some ancient, pagan God, "Now you will listen to me."

"Please!" Antonov exclaimed, falling to the ground in despair, "Do not kill me! I will do whatever you say!"

"Yes." the giant replied with a sneer, "You will."

* * *

Piotr hadn't told his name to any of the thugs that he'd attacked. It hadn't been necessary. In the end, they'd given him the information he wanted. He hadn't had any proof, at first, that it was his adversary who was guiding the crime in that town, and if he'd been less determined to locate the man, he might have let up and pursued some other string of clues, but it turned out to have paid off. He had the name of the building where the leader of that city's largest crime ring planned his schemes, and he was going there.

Piotr spent just over an hour on the subway before he arrived at the Konova office building. On the outside, it was looked upon as a legitimate business workplace, but under the surface, it was, Piotr knew, a home base for crime lords and drug dealers, and it had been for over thirty years. Most people were aware of that, although the police could never get enough evidence into their hands to make anything stick. Piotr remembered his brother Mikhail talking about that years before, when he himself had been a police detective.

"There is so much crime in this land of ours," Mikhail had said, "but so little evidence. Sometimes, good people have to put themselves in mortal danger to find that evidence."

"I do this for you as well, Mikhail." Piotr thought silently, "If my training has not been enough, I will die by your lesson of courage."

That was what Piotr was thinking about as he walked up to the front doors of the Konova office building and tried to open them. Locked. Typical. In only a moment, Piotr had transformed, removing the hood from his jacket to reveal his slick, metal face, and kicked the door in, in one swift motion. The sound of metal and glass giving under the pressure of inhuman physical strength filled that whole floor of the building, and probably several other floors as well.

"You could have just knocked." said a voice from inside, and the sound of metal scraping along marble drew closer to Piotr. He had a feeling he wouldn't even need to enter the building at that point, and started to back up a little, but his enemy seemed to see that as a sign of fear, and attacked.

At once, thin, metal tentacles snaked towards Piotr, but he reacted quickly, punching one aside and grabbing the other in his hands. In a moment more, he'd yanked it hard, drawing the person at the other end out into the open air, his carbonadium armor colliding with the ground outside.

Despite his shock over the strength of his adversary, however, Omega Red was soon back on his feet, charging at Piotr with unnatural speed. In only a moment more, his tentacles snaked out, and Piotr had leapt upwards into the air, out of their reach, and kicked Omega Red in the face in mid-air. The cybernetic nightmare flew back away from Piotr when the kick landed in his face, and he could feel that even his carbonadium armor was at the breaking point.

"Yeah." Omega Red realized aloud, "You're tough, alright. So what did you want to see me about? Looking for work?"

"Among your kind?" Piotr asked angrily, "Not likely."

"Then you plan to rob me," Omega Red said with a smile, back on his feet again, but showing no signs of attacking yet, "or maybe you want revenge against me for something I did that turned out badly for you. You wouldn't be the first, though you are tougher than most of the people who've come after me."

"What I want..." Piotr hissed, stepping forward and growing to nearly twice his previous mass, "is my sister back."

"Your sister?" Omega Red asked, amused, "Well, let's see if I can oblige you. I think I could use my resources to help you locate someone who's lost, if you'd be willing to..."

"You do not understand me!" Piotr shouted in a loud, booming voice, "My sister was taken from me by you, butcher! I will have her back!"

That was when Piotr made his next move; reaching down from a height three times that of his enemy, and grabbing Omega Red, when he started to feel his strength leaving him. Something was wrong. Piotr dropped his enemy, stunned and worried.

"Omega means the end for life and living things." Omega Red replied, "Now you know why I am called by that name. Spend too long around me on a bad day, and anything that breathes has a tendency to just... die. Now, I will tell you again. I am willing to do business with you, if you will just do a small job for mAAH!"

Piotr had reached around, and slugged Omega Red hard in the chest as he'd been talking, knocking him down the street with inhuman force. The blow hadn't really hurt Omega Red too much, but it was clear that Piotr was strong enough to do some real damage to his body... At least temporarily. That was a rare thing.

"Mikhail Rasputin was my brother." Piotr hissed as he felt the dizziness leaving him and started to close with his enemy again, "He investigated the crimes you and your men committed. Afterwards, he disappeared, and so did my family. When I came home that day, I saw on the wall of our family's barn the symbol of the omega burned into it, as if made with a flame thrower and given time to cool. Among the remains of our house, I found the charred bodies of two adults, but there was one more Rasputin. I want revenge against you for what you did to my family, monster, but first, I want to know what you have done to my sister. Tell me, or I will tear your head from your shoulders!"

As Piotr had finished his speech, Omega Red got to his feet again, sneering as local citizens ran for shelter, to get away from the two monsters battling in their streets.

"How can you know all of that and still think so little of me?" Omega Red asked with a twitch of irritation to his lips, "Do you think I got where I am in the syndicates by announcing to my victims that I am responsible for their fates? If I had killed your family, you would not have realized that. I am not so stupid as to leave such obvious evidence lying around. Now that you have implied that you think I am, I feel no reservations about killing you."

"Liar! Murderer! You are the worst form of scum!" Piotr exclaimed, charging Omega Red with all his strength, grabbing him by the head in one hand, and slamming his fist against him from the front. It was a blow that put a dent in Omega Red's armor, flooding his body with pain. It was delicious, and he retaliated in kind, his tendrils snaking around Piotr's fist, and lifting him, with unnatural strength, upwards, then bringing him back down again. From what he could tell, Omega Red's ability to absorb the energy of life from other living beings didn't seem to be working on that metal giant, but he still had his own strength to rely on, and his own power to heal and deal damage, and the giant was still vulnerable to his death pheromones, as evidenced by the sickness he seemed to have experienced a little earlier. Omega Red licked his lips delightedly. The vast colossus was a fighter worthy of his power, but if he played it out right, Omega Red still had a strong chance for victory.

Even Omega Red's last attack didn't seem to have hurt the young man, so much as thrown him off his balance. His strength was almost unbelievable. In fact, in terms of pure physical strength and durability, Piotr exceeded Omega Red substantially, but Omega Red was faster, and he had the death pheromones, which could kill anything that breathed them in. As they continued to fight, it became obvious that the key to Omega Red's victory lay in staying close to Piotr and keeping up the attack, while Piotr's own attacks seemed to be strictly short-range, and he was still young and inexperienced. He didn't seem to have any grasp of just how much of a disadvantage he was at, which meant that the battle was still his to lose, and Omega Red's to win.

At last, after keeping up the fight for just over twenty minutes, the weakness that Piotr had been feeling in his muscles grew too great, and he fell backwards to the pavement with a sharp clang. Only a moment later, his x-force gave out, and he lay, defeated, on the ground.

"Your strength is admirable, young man," Omega Red said as he stood over Piotr's body with a large smile on his face, "but you are not clever enough in using it. I am tempted to offer you, once again, the chance to apprentice yourself to me, so that your strength might be at my service..."

"If I were a vulgar man, such as yourself..." Piotr gasped out, feeling his throat closing up as he spoke, "I would tell you to go to Hell."

"Yes. I thought that might be your answer." Omega Red replied, one tentacle wrapping itself around Piotr's body. In only a moment, Piotr could feel his life slipping away into those tentacles, and he blacked out, to the sound of metal being torn to shreds, and sharp impacts and explosions detonating not far away; the sounds of war.

* * *

Piotr heard many sounds in his dreams; the sounds of screams of pain and struggle, of the laughter of some wicked creature with a huge, deep throat; the sounds of emotionless chanting in a tongue he didn't recognize, and over it all, a roaring fire that refused to die. It was quite some time before those horrible dreams even began to fade, but if it had been only an hour or a few hours, it still would have felt like forever. At last, within those nightmares came a realization; bitter and unyielding, that as much as Omega Red had clearly deserved death, perhaps Piotr also had been wrong. Perhaps Omega Red was not the villain of his story.

As he came to that realization, Piotr heard a familiar voice; the voice of one who had stuck his neck out, again and again, on Piotr's behalf, and Piotr began to feel ashamed, not for what he'd needed to do, but for not telling the professor about it beforehand, and giving him a chance to decide whether or not he wished to be part of that section of Piotr's life as well. It wasn't as if Piotr had anything to prove. He had no pride in his own abilities. He just had things that he wanted done, and Xavier probably could have helped him to do that. The only thing that had made the mission personal in the past had been the fact that so few others were willing to condone a mission of violence against another person, no matter who they were or what they'd done. In that, Piotr saw most people as his opponents in life, but aside from Xavier's love of peace, the professor had given him no real reason to doubt his good intentions. Perhaps, Piotr thought, it would be different with him. With that decision made, Piotr focused on the professor's voice, and felt his own breath within his chest. He was ready to awaken.

Piotr opened his eyes and sat up, looking around. Sure enough, he was laid out on a row of seats, on the plane that Moira and Xavier had used to get within range of Kevin McTaggert not long ago. Kurt, Jubilation, Scott and Logan were all seated in that same chamber on the opposite side, and Xavier was seated right in front of Piotr with a sour look on his face.

"How... how long?" Piotr asked, not sure what else to say, but ready to face Xavier boldly. No level of disapproval would sway him from what he needed to do.

"Three weeks." Logan muttered, "You gave us a helluva chase."

"No. How long was I unconscious?"

"Only an hour." Xavier replied, "Rescuing you was no simple task."

"Where is Omega Red?" Piotr asked angrily, "Did he escape?"

"Yup." Logan replied, "He saw us comin' and scrammed."

"Of course." Piotr muttered, then looked over at Logan, and said to the others, "Even if he had claimed victory over me, he would have no reason to fight you. It means nothing anyway. He is not my enemy."

"Y'wanna bet?" Logan asked, but Xavier seemed to have sent him a telepathic message a moment later, because he stopped talking shortly after that.

"Why did you leave us, Piotr?" Xavier asked, looking sad and distraught.

"Have you not read my thoughts?" Piotr asked.

"I don't do that to people unless they wish me to." Xavier replied calmly, "If you want me to know something, you may simply tell me about it."

"Very well." Piotr said, "But it will not be as convincing."

Neither Xavier nor any of the others said a word after that as Piotr began his story.

"It was only a few months before I was first approached by you, Professor. My family and I managed both a farm and an associated store. Most often, the job of manning the store was my mother's, while my father and I did the farm chores. For a while, Mikhail helped out as well, until he discovered that his courage and talents made him ideal for work in law enforcement. When he began to earn a reasonable sum on his own, we found that we could afford to hire on some additional help, and together, we kept the farm and the store going, despite meager profits."

"When I first discovered my mutant powers, my parents were convinced that I was a gift to them from God. My strength was not as great in those days, but I was still strong enough to move heavy loads easily, and help with the tractor when it fell into disrepair. I also had no fear of any of the animals on our farm, because of my powerful armor, and all those who worked on the farm with us appreciated my assistance. Some even looked up to me as a hero."

"My little sister Illyana, in particular, treated me with respect and admiration; almost like a God. 'When I grow older,' she would sometimes tell my parents, 'I'll be just like Piotr.' They would smile and laugh, and treat her remarks as kindly as they could, though they knew she could never have the power that I did."

"For almost a year, I used my powers on that farm and at the store, though I dared not show them to the customers. My parents were convinced that if others ever learned of my special abilities, I would be taken from them and studied, or even killed to satisfy some powerful man."

"As much as I tried to reassure them, I knew that they were right. At the time, I suspected that I was the strongest man on Earth, but even if that were true, I could not use that strength to protect my family forever. It would be better to protect them with silence than with my fists. As time passed, and my abilities yielded a noticeable profit on the farm, I would have dinner with my family every night, and every weekend without fail, my brother Mikhail would visit us for dinner. When he made those visits, he would speak to us about his work in law enforcement, and sometimes would even tell us about those he wished to capture and imprison most. Many of them were crime lords of great power, both physically and through manipulation, and among the most powerful was a man who called himself Omega Red. According to Mikhail, he had been building power in the cities of Russia for many years, and was one of the most physically powerful people on Earth. Because of his great strength, Mikhail doubted that even I would have been able to defeat him, and I fear he was right, but I must not get ahead of myself."

"Mikhail told me one night that Omega Red's accomplices were going to be moving a large drug shipment for distribution into the central parts of the city, and that according to a rumor he had heard, an emissary of Omega Red would be there that very night to accept the payment. If they could capture and arrest that emissary, they could determine the nature of Omega Red's funding, and acquire a means of freezing all his assets in Russia, making all of his money useless. He was very agitated and worried that the bust would not go through as planned, or that Omega Red himself would be there, but as it turned out, Omega Red had made a dreadful mistake, because on the following night, I received a telephone call from Mikhail, telling me with delight that it had all gone through, and Omega Red's criminal endeavors had been crippled. I wish that I had had more to say at the time, because it was the last time I ever heard from him."

Xavier's eyes widened, and Jubilation's eyebrows rose a little. Scott and Kurt both swallowed hard. Only Logan seemed completely unsurprised by what had just been said. Still, none of them seemed eager to interrupt Piotr as he continued.

"After a week passed, and Mikhail did not arrive at the dinner table, I was convinced that he had been killed by Omega Red. I wanted to go out and hunt the crime lord at once, but my parents spoke to me with great wisdom, convincing me that as strong as I was, I could not defeat someone like that. I listened to their words, but I practiced in the use of my powers in my spare time. I knew from Mikhail's words to me before that Omega Red was a trained killer, and I knew that I had very little experience in fighting. It was that thought most of all that stayed my hand."

"Not long after that, however, it was my job to mind the store for three hours in mid-afternoon before my evening chores, and when another man came to take my place so that I could return home, I was most eager for dinner, even though it meant more chores as well. However, when I got within a mile of my house, I could see a plume of smoke rising from the direction of my home, and I was horrified by the sight. I rushed to the house as fast as I could and tore the place apart, searching for survivors, but there were none. I found the charred remains of both my parents in the fire, but of Illyana, there was no trace at all. With the thought that she might still be alive, in the clutches of some madman, I was more infuriated than ever at my own inexperience, even before I saw the omega symbol burned into one side of our barn."

"Yeah." Logan muttered from nearby, "Sounds like a setup to me. Omega Red ain't that dumb."

"Had you been there to tell me that on that day," Piotr continued, "my life might have taken a very different course. Instead, I thought, in my youth and inexperience that it was Omega Red who had attacked my family, because of what my brother had done to his empire. I have not seen my brother since then either, and I have no doubt that he too is dead, but when I went to Omega Red just recently, after benefiting from your training, and demanded that he return Illyana to me, he did not know what I was talking about. I am now convinced that he did not take Illyana from the farm, or murder my parents, though I am still fairly certain that he is responsible for my brother's death."

"I hope you don't intend to pursue him again in this manner." Xavier said, but Piotr just shook his head.

"Perhaps one day I will stop him when I am powerful enough, but it will not be because of what he did to my brother. The living are in desperate enough need. I can do nothing further to help the dead."

Xavier seemed relieved when Piotr said that, but his relief was soon to vanish at his student's next words.

"Please leave me at the ruins of my home in the countryside for a time. I would study the place further for clues, and if anyone here believes that they can help me in that investigation, I encourage that as well."

However, to Piotr, it seemed that the worst possible eventuality was happening before his very eyes, as Xavier shook his head sadly.

"We're going back to the mansion, for now." Xavier said, "You're still a student, Piotr, and you could have spent these last three weeks learning something worthwhile. There is no point in pursuing this fruitless obsession further. Perhaps later, when we have time, we can look into this matter more, but for now..."

"You are not listening to me!" Piotr said, his anger rising as he got to his feet, "Please leave me at my home! I will not ask again! I no longer need your schooling!"

"Do not make me repeat myself." Xavier replied sternly as he looked up into Piotr's face.

Piotr paused for a few seconds, desperation and horror growing in his features. Once more, he'd been betrayed by someone that he thought he could trust. None of the students knew what the look in Piotr's eyes meant, but Logan had seen it hundreds of times, and rushed to his own feet, shouting "Chuck!"

In only a moment, Piotr had transformed into his fully-metallic form, and was rushing for the door to the plane, about ready to crash into it, when he suddenly felt the will rising within him to refrain from damaging the plane. He couldn't understand it at first, as he stopped to think about it. He had no attachment to the plane, and very little to the other students, or to Xavier, who'd betrayed him. That was when he remembered the power of Charles Xavier, and turned to face him with a look of pure malice in his eyes.

"Then that is how it is, Xavier." Piotr said, addressing the professor in what was meant to be an insulting way, "You will control me, then? How long can you continue in this way, I wonder? Hours? Days? Weeks? Or will your control fade when you sleep, giving me my chance to kill you for doing this to me? I will never forgive you for keeping me from my sister, Xavier. Never!"

Even as Xavier had exerted control over Piotr to stop him from charging through the plane doors, he'd known it wasn't the right thing to do, and when Piotr had spoken to him in that way, his mind began to fill with even greater doubts, forcing him to reconsider what he'd done and why. Though he knew just what would happen, Charles Xavier was at the point of releasing Piotr, when he felt something truly shocking within the teenager's mind, breaking his concentration completely. In that moment, Piotr Rasputin spun around and charged through the metal door of the plane, twisting metal all around it, and decompressing the whole chamber. The other three students clung to their seats as Piotr leapt from the plane and started to grow larger as he descended towards the ground. Scott had to cling to his seat with one hand, and use his other hand to keep his glasses in place, to keep from doing even more damage, and Logan grabbed the professor's chair, struggling to keep it in place too.

The very moment the plane decompressed, the pilot was aware of it. An alarm had gone off in the cockpit to alert him to the danger, and he had to hope that everybody back there could hang on as he struggled to bring the plane to a safe landing. Fortunately, any piece of land would suffice, since the plane could take off and land using small jets on its bottom, and it was such an emergency, that they had to find a landing spot as quickly as possible.

As the pilot struggled to get the plane under control, and lower it quickly into an open field nearby, he heard an enormous crash, and out of the corner of his eye, saw a vast, metal giant not far away, growing progressively smaller as it stood in the middle of a large crater, totally unharmed by the impact. The sight distracted him from his struggle to steer the plane for a fraction of a second, and that was all it took for the plane to come down in the soil, bending the nose backwards, and twisting one of the wings before it finally came to a stop.

* * *

The pilot, a man named Holder, was grateful to be alive and awake as the plane finally stopped. His body was covered in bruises, but all the same, his first objective after the crash was to unbuckle, check on the passengers, and get everyone safely onto level ground.

Fortunately, a short, five-minute check assured Holder that no one had died in the crash, though everyone had some nasty bruises after the fact, except Kurt and Logan. For the most part, medical needs were quite limited, and they were all able to leave the plane safely after the crash within about fifteen minutes. As the group left the plane in an orderly fashion, as dictated by Logan and Holder, Kurt would say nothing either for or against Piotr during that evacuation, though he did spend some time helping the others, and asking if they were alright. Jubilation, or Jubes as some of the other students had taken to calling her, however, had a great deal to say.

"I can't believe this." she muttered as she slid out of the plane doors to the ground, "That rotten, callous SOB! If I ever see him again, he's getting a bomb in the face."

Scott hesitated for a moment or two as Jubilation reiterated those words, but when he spoke, he hardly sounded much less angry.

"Piotr ought to have known better than that. I don't care how desperate he is to save his sister. He didn't even consider the danger he was putting us all in as having any bearing on his actions. I don't plan on shooting him, Jubes, but I do think he ought to have some kind of consequences brought down on him for what he's done."

Logan was largely silent about the whole affair as Scott and Jubilation talked, aside from helping the others to get free, while Holder couldn't seem to get over the shock of what he'd just seen outside the plane during the crash, though he neglected to speak up about it for at least a while, since he'd decided that no one was really going to believe him anyway.

However, Xavier had nothing at all to say as the group gathered up their possessions and left the broken plane to head for the nearest town, looking for some place where they could make a phone call to James Braddock again, and a means of getting back home. They were on the march for three hours before they reached a Russian hotel, and that whole time, Xavier said nothing at all, which was most unusual for him.

In Logan, silence was expected. He didn't do much talking, unless he felt it would help matters. In Xavier, though, silence was uncommon, most strange, and even worrying, particularly after a disaster. He might normally have given the students some kind of canned advice about staying close together, or being careful when moving, to make sure their injuries didn't get any worse. Even a short period of silence was worrying in Xavier, and the prolonged silence that he was giving everyone throughout that hike worried them all. It even worried Jubilation when she began to notice it about ten minutes later than Kurt or Scott, though she wouldn't have admitted it. The professor was a pretty good guy, but he was definitely in some kind of shock, and she had a feeling that it wasn't just the plane crash or Piotr's decision to put them all in mortal danger because of his desperate obsession. Something else was bugging him.

Logan had known Xavier longer than anyone else there, and he could tell better than any of them that something was truly wrong with him. Xavier should have been worried about all kinds of things to do with explaining the wrecked plane to Braddock, getting back to America, and coping with the problem of Piotr's choice to leave the X-men, but those things didn't even seem to have crossed the professor's mind, and Logan wanted to know why.

Professor Xavier had made a number of telephone calls when they finally got to the hotel, though even while he was on the phone, his words sounded forced and emotionless, to the point where whoever he was talking to must have realized just how upset and shaken-up he was, even if they dared not ask him about it. As Xavier hung up the phone from his last call, and left the hotel once more, he sat near the hotel's front entrance, saying no words, and making no plans; not even something as simple and obvious as getting them a room for a while, until their new transportation arrived. After about five minutes of standing in one place, doing nothing, Logan saw the impatience in the eyes of the students, and knew that he had to get answers. Walking up to Xavier, Logan made sure that he'd gotten the professor's attention, and with a jerk of his head, motioned the professor to move towards one side of the building, away from Holder and the students, who seemed to be staying where they were for the moment, though some curiosity was on Jubilation and Holder's faces.

"Alright, Chuck." Logan said in irritation, "What gives?"

It was a question that was intentionally left unfinished. The remainder of that question resided only in Logan's thoughts, which he bore to Xavier at that moment, without any defenses or attempts to conceal them; trying to draw out once again the old ways that the two had once communicated in, each taking advantage of the enhanced senses of the other. Charles Xavier wasn't stupid, however. He knew what Logan was asking without having to read his mind, which sort of frustrated Logan a bit when the professor spoke.

"I suppose I can't keep this from you, old friend." Xavier said, "There's something about Piotr that I hadn't realized until just recently."

Logan's ears twitched when he heard that, and he listened carefully as Xavier explained what he'd discovered in the mind of his student that very day.

"Piotr Rasputin has a body of iron, at times. We both knew that." Xavier said with a sigh, "What I didn't realize until today was that his will was the same way. In certain things, and about certain people, Piotr's desires, views and will are stronger than anything I've ever felt in someone his age. He's a stubborn and obstinate boy, and no one can tell him that he should be otherwise. I've met men like him before, Logan, and they can rarely live calmly in a civilized society, because they're unwilling to compromise in the things they do and the values they hold. He has such a strong will, that I truly believe that he would have tried to kill me if I'd brought him back to the institute."

Logan was silent for several seconds after Xavier had finished speaking, but as usual, he decided not to voice his own opinion until he was sure it would do some good, so Logan simply asked "So what's next?"

"I have apologized to James Braddock for what happened to his plane, but he took it well. He said that yesterday, he had a conversation with his daughter, and that was worth a dozen planes. He also told me I could keep the parts if I thought they'd be any use."

"Sounds like Mccoy's not gonna get bored for a while." Logan replied with a smirk.

"I also contacted Moira about swift transportation back home." Xavier continued, "She says that she can get the six of us back to America safely with the pieces of the old plane, but she doesn't want us trying to bring Piotr back against his will again."

"Can't say I blame her." Logan remarked, looking about ready to show some real sadness for the first time in many years. It was a really rotten type of situation to be in, particularly since Piotr Rasputin wasn't the only one to blame for how things had turned out.

"Tell me the truth, Chuck." Logan said with a hint of sadness as he looked Xavier right in the eyes, "If you'd known how things would turn out with the kid, would you still have tried to bring him back?"

Xavier hesitated for several seconds after he heard that question, because he knew that he was himself afraid of the answer.

* * *

Piotr's trek across the countryside had been a long and exhausting one. He'd recognized the location he'd landed in almost at once. It hadn't been as far from his old land as he'd been afraid it would be, but he had another problem that was sure to pose some difficulty. Someone; either Omega Red or Xavier had removed Piotr's wallet while he'd been unconscious, which meant that he had no money for transportation, and needed to make the journey to his family's farm on foot without any food, or the chance to buy any, and truthfully, he was very hungry.

Still, Piotr continued onward, pressing on against a growing hunger and thirst within his body for hour after hour, occasionally using his x-force to grow to an enormous height, and take much larger steps for a short time, thus covering more ground. However, whenever he did that, Piotr found that he began to get hungrier than ever, and remembered Henry Mccoy's words to him about x-force; how it was like a muscle that, when exercised, consumed the body's energy. As helpful as it would have been to be able to use his powers forever, or to remain in armored giant form for hours at a time, he simply couldn't, and he was exhausted and starving when, after hours on the road, he found himself arriving at the remnants of his parent's farm.

None of what Piotr had gone through over the last few hours, however, had robbed him of his feelings, or his desire to find and rescue his sister, if indeed she could still be found. Furthermore, there was a part of Piotr's heart that was ready to blame the whole situation on Xavier. With his psychic powers, and Logan's good sense of smell, any search for a missing person was bound to become at least a bit easier, and they wouldn't have lost more than a few hours by assisting him. In the end, though, they'd decided that they would rather control him than help him, and that was when he'd had to break away. As he moved up to the pile of burnt rubble that was left of his old house, Piotr was tired, hungry and furious, but at least, he thought, he was still on the trail of his missing sister.

Arriving at the mass of soggy, charred timbers that had once been his home, and the burned old barn that had fallen into disrepair, Piotr could feel, deep down inside, that he might not have enough strength left to finish sorting through all the debris, and even if he did, he would be in no state to rescue anyone by the time he was done. The thoughts were the closest thing to a true regret over his decisions that he'd felt in many months, but as much as he wished that he could have succeeded with the help of others, he knew that he could not fail Illyana in good conscience, unless he was dead from exhaustion, or from wounds. Whether he could save her or not, the one thing that he certainly could not do was stop trying.

In his previous visit to the wreckage of his family's house, Piotr has searched only for survivors, or for the dead, and that was what he'd found, but his second search among the rubble was a search for anything unusual; any clue or piece of evidence that might indicate who was really responsible; car keys, a pistol, a wallet or anything else that might have been dropped by the real perpetrator.

For almost an hour, Piotr could feel his strength draining away as he moved, in his armored form, amidst the rubble, lifting boards, timbers, shingles, masonry and stone out of the way, looking for anything that he didn't recognize as having been a part of something that belonged to his family. At last, Piotr came to what looked like the wreckage of his family's upstairs bathroom; a toilet, a tub, some tiles... Nothing too strange, until he saw a small, red gemstone that looked something like an oblong ruby fall out of the wreckage.

Piotr had never seen such a clear and perfect gem in his life. It sparkled when he held it up in the sun, and it certainly looked both rare and beautiful. Whatever it was, it was too clear to be a simple rock, and if it had any real value as a gem, it would certainly have been beyond the price range of his family, which made it evidence of one sort or another. He quickly decided to pocket it and continue his search through the wreckage for any other clues. Soon, he'd come upon more bathroom tiles, and they, unlike those that he had seen before them, bore strange, red lines that he didn't remember having seen on those tiles when he was younger.

Piotr quickly retrieved the bathroom tiles from the pile of twisted, charred rubble that they were scattered throughout, and assembled them into what looked like the right order. As he stood back to get a good look at the design painted across the tiles in bright red, it sent a nervous chill through him. The design on the tiles looked like a series of large, red circles connected to one another by sharp-edged lines, and lettering that he didn't recognize, and stretching out from within to whatever was outside of those circles with five separate spots among the circles that were bare, and seemed to be intended to hold some round objects. He had no experience at all with actual occult phenomena, but he definitely didn't get a good feeling from the circle that he'd just reconstructed.

The lonely, angry, tormented young man continued to search through the rubble of that bathroom until his whole body ached, and his x-force was pulling at his consciousness. He was still struggling to keep working at it when he blacked out.

* * *

Waking to the sight of Charles Xavier sitting nearby for the second time in a row was hardly a pleasant thing for Piotr. It still didn't change anything between them, in his mind, but it did put Piotr Rasputin in a very uncomfortable position, particularly if Xavier was as furious or stern-looking as Piotr expected him to be. However, what was really on Charles Xavier's face, as Piotr looked him over, was no kind of anger at all, but a deep, consuming nervousness that seemed to be distracting him badly. For a few seconds, despite his special powers, Xavier didn't even seem to notice that Piotr was awake.

"I did not expect you to persist in this way." Piotr said as he sat up, drawing Xavier's glance, but in that glance, there was still no real anger; only sadness and worry.

"I didn't come to you to try to convince you to come back with us." Xavier said sadly, "Not this time. If you really have no solid commitment to the X-men anymore, I can't convince you to remain with us, nor will I try. Right now, I'm here because in spite of everything, I wanted to offer you the help you requested."

A hundred thoughts; new and old, filled Piotr's mind when he heard those words escape the professor's lips. It wasn't what he'd expected, but then, the months of bitterness and loss had definitely made him something of a pessimist. Maybe Xavier had not meant to betray Piotr, but simply hadn't realized how little he was asking, or how important it had been to him. Piotr wasn't accustomed to people around him changing their minds about things, especially in his favor when he'd done something to hurt them, which was, to him, the real shock. The plane must have been utterly wrecked by that point, though he suspected that the others had all survived. Still, it was hard to believe that Xavier held no grudge against him for the damage he'd caused. In Xavier's place, he realized, he would have reacted more violently.

As Piotr looked around, however, he found that he had, in fact, been moved far away from his home, onto a soft bed in a hotel room that he didn't recognize. That worried him, for a moment, until he resolved himself to think more positively. After all, things seemed to be going well, for the moment, and it would probably be best to put forth the effort to be an optimist.

"Have you investigated the house already, then?" Piotr asked, wishing to be sure that Xavier truly meant what he was saying.

"Yes, we have." Xavier replied, still looking worried as he gestured to the wooden end table next to the bed, where four more red gems like Piotr's were resting, "Logan found these among the rubble, but nothing else. They may be clues, but we can't be certain what else they mean. I can tell you, however, that they are not rubies, diamonds, quartz or any other kind of rock or gemstone I have ever seen. Their uniqueness makes them suspicious, in my mind. I believe that a study of them may lead to the answers you seek. However, there is more..."

Xavier paused for a moment, and closed his eyes before he continued.

"When I was within range of your house, Piotr, I began to feel something that stretched beyond mere thoughts or impulses. It was almost like a residue of emotion, so powerful that it might very easily have been a mind all its own. The emotions that I felt from it, however, were inherently destructive; rage, jealousy, hate... I've never felt such malevolence hanging so intensely over any building, Piotr. Whatever destroyed your home and killed your parents, it left behind a feeling of intense evil."

Xavier's expression of nervousness had softened as he'd explained it all, but Piotr's look of curiosity and confusion had only intensified as he'd listened. Neither his thoughts nor his words could be spared, for the moment, to concern himself with the safety of the other X-men, as he was absorbing the new information that Xavier had just given him. He still thought, factoring in the new evidence, that Illyana had been taken away somehow, and probably still by a madman. Logan hadn't, after all, been able to find her with his enhanced senses, and Piotr was still eager to locate whoever was responsible for doing that, and recover his sister at any cost, but from the sounds of things, it wasn't just going to be a matter of training hard to defeat a strong enemy. Despite all his hard work, and all the time he'd spent refining his powers and learning to use them, Piotr began to feel truly afraid as he stared at the five red gemstones resting on the table nearby...

* * *

Xavier put the phone down with a feeling of relief rising in his heart, then turned his chair around to leave the hotel room. It had hardly been a clean sort of trip, and quite a number of people had been hurt on both the inside and the outside. Still, Piotr had agreed to come back to the institute with them, which was the important thing; the X-men were together again.

All the same, every time Xavier saw Piotr with the other X-men after his little rampage through the Russian underworld, the other students never seemed to be quite as friendly with him as they had been before. Of course, Piotr had rarely spoken with the other X-men, even when the team had first been formed, and it seemed that hadn't changed much, but the others had never really been nervous around him before either. Even Kurt seemed to be avoiding him, and Jubilation kept shooting him a series of dirty looks whenever they were in the same room together. Just from that evidence alone, it was easy to tell that damage had been done by Piotr's escapade, which couldn't be undone so easily.

Xavier had never really considered the X-men to be anything more than an arrangement between himself and his students, but to them, he realized, it had to be more than that. They had to learn together, work together, live in the same building, and so forth, but there was a greater substance to the students' relationship than even that. The students were all still teenagers, and they were at the age when they should have been having fun and making friends; even Piotr. It made Xavier sad to see Piotr's natural dedication, and the things he was dedicated to driving him away from the people whom he should have been speaking with as friends, and despite the help he'd been to Betsy as a result, Xavier also felt somewhat sad to have brought his students to Muir Island in the first place, separating them from one another. The only thing that wasn't in some way his fault was the danger that they kept running into everywhere they went, but it looked like they'd be more or less safe once they were back at the mansion and all together again. All they had to do was get to the helicopter back to Muir Island, then fly from there back to the institute. Xavier just wished that he could shake his feelings of worry, or be sure that the danger would definitely be past once they were home again.

* * *

At the helicopter pad near the city, the chopper was being refueled, and routine maintenance was being carried out in preparation for the arrival of Xavier and his students. However, one blond-haired man oversaw the whole operation from nearby. He was a very rich young heir with, like those the helicopter would soon be carrying, a few special traits, and at the precise moment when everyone was looking away from him, he opened his left hand, and a tiny machine, no bigger than a fly floated out and entered the helicopter by a crack in one of the side doors. The blond man smiled as a tiny hole closed itself up in his hand, and he spoke into what seemed to be his wristwatch.

"It's in."

"Are you certain that Charles Xavier will not detect its presence?" came a quiet voice from the other end.

"Even if he's as powerful as our lady friend thinks, there's no way he can use his special powers to find a machine. If Xavier really has designed an independent school for mutants, my little toy will find it. Don't worry about that."

"Very good, Pierce." the voice over the radio replied, "Then, I will call you when the time comes for the move. I'm sure you'll want to take part in that as well."

"Wouldn't miss it for the world." the blond man replied, smiling as he put his arms behind his back, to continue watching the maintenance of the aircraft. It looked like it was going to be a pretty good day.

* * *

Scott was glad to be heading back to the mansion after all that the group had been through. It had been an extremely hard, long trip, and they'd been in mortal danger a number of times, but it always seemed like the danger they were in was of a more immediate and severe kind, that didn't allow a skilled mutant time to warm up and get a little exercise during the fight. Of course, Scott Summers hadn't ever really thought of exercise as preparations for fighting, or of fighting as a type of exercise, but it felt, to him, as if he hadn't gotten a single good chance for a workout since he'd left the institute, and he was really looking forward to that as the jet landed horizontally on the grounds of Professor Xavier's school.

However, it was obvious as they approached the school that something was definitely amiss. All the students could tell that. Professor Xavier had been turning whiter since they'd passed the coastline, and it seemed like he hadn't said anything about how things were going at the mansion just because he hadn't dared. Scott knew that something horrible had happened when he saw that it was perfectly silent on the grounds, despite the plane segments laid out on the back lawn, and the fact that it was late in the evening, when Bobby and Ororo were usually outside having fun. As soon as the plane had landed, and the doors opened, Scott had rushed out, shouting at the top of his lungs "Bobby! Ororo! Jean!"

That was when Scott Summers threw open the front doors of the Xavier Institute, and saw the puddle of water filling the front hall. It probably meant one of two things; either Bobby had decided to play another practical joke, or else there had been a fight.

Logan was inside the mansion only a second after Scott, and giving a quick sniff back and forth through the air, told him "This way."

Scott and Logan rushed through the mansion at top speed, worry growing in the heart of Scott Summers with every second, as they charged through the mansion hallways. Only Kurt seemed able to keep up with them until they arrived at a classroom in the middle of the mansion. Logan flung open the classroom door the moment he'd arrived at it, and there, they saw Sheila Ramsey on the floor, looking half dead. She had tiny puncture wounds at a few spots in her arms and legs, and she seemed to have been unconscious for quite a while. Logan, however, seemed not to be focusing on Sheila at all, at the moment.

"We need to get her to Mccoy." Scott said, "Then we have to search the grounds for whoever or whatever did this."

"We ain't gonna have time." Logan replied angrily, as he got to his feet, "There's some old enemies headed this way. The group that hit the institute not too long back... The girl, the fighter and that big lug, and there's a whole bunch of others too. They're all headed for the jet..."

"We need to warn the others." Scott insisted, but Logan shook his head.

"That's the worst part, kid." Logan replied, genuine fear in his face, "Jean, Ororo, Bobby and Hank're all gone. Somebody musta took 'em, but I can't figure out who. Whoever he was, he didn't have no scent."

Both Scott and Kurt looked terrified as they listened to Logan's words, and in only a moment more, Kurt felt something hard collide with his head from behind, and Scott spun around, firing his optic beams into the hall at the intruder; a man all dressed in black, who ducked easily out of the way, then dove forward and struck Scott in the chin. Both boys were unconscious in seconds, and Logan faced the black-clad stranger once more.

"Didn't think I'd see you again." Logan muttered furiously.

"You mean you were hoping you wouldn't." the man replied, "I remember giving you a pretty nasty pasting last time."

With only a moment to strike, Logan grabbed a nearby desk and hurled it at the exit. Naturally, the attacking martial-artist was out of the way in time, and the desk, fortunately, didn't hit either of the unconscious students either, but it did clear a path for Logan to start running for the exit himself. Logan knew, on some level, that the man in the black suit had the power to stop him in any number of ways, but he didn't make a move to that effect as Logan threw open the front doors again, and saw a sight that filled him with terror.

Piotr and Jubilation lay sprawled out on the ground with deep bruises on their bodies at a number of points. Over them stood a group of mutants, who vastly outnumbered them; one boy crouching near the plane, another standing to the left with a book of matches, right next to a determined-looking girl, and a creature behind them that looked something like a cross between a teenage girl and porcupine. Near them stood the enormous, heavyset boy that Logan had fought with before, as well as another woman that Logan had never seen before, who had deep blue skin and bright golden eyes, each only a slightly lighter shade than Kurt's, and there, in the center of all those enemy mutants was Anna Marie, with her long, brown hair with that one, distinctive streak of white along the front, wearing her long-sleeved jacket and her thick gloves, her lips planted firmly on those of Charles Xavier...

* * *

To be continued...


	9. X Institute 9: Plan B

The Xavier Institute Neo

Issue 9

"Plan B"

* * *

The blood practically drained from Logan's face as he watched the professor fall from Anna's grip to the hard, marble path that led through the grounds. Anna smiled broadly as she said "Well, ah guess that's all theah is to it. We don't hafta to be heah anymore."

However, as she said that, Logan could have sworn he saw a slight blur of motion in one of Anna's hands, as if she was using her fantastic speed to hide something in the left pocket of her large, brown jacket. Logan was probably one of only a couple dozen martial artists who would have even been able to notice that kind of speed, and, he quickly realized, another one was the man dressed in black, who'd fought him before. At the moment, though, he was still inside the mansion, which meant that there was no way he could have seen what she'd done.

Quickly adapting to her new powers, Anna put one hand to the edge of her head, apparently sending a message to her other partner inside. In only a moment, he'd seemed to appear right next to her, and then, they all grabbed him by the shoulders and hands (except for the porcupine girl, who brushed one claw against the big guy's leg.) Then they were all gone, leaving Charles Xavier lying on the marble walk to the institute.

Logan cursed again, running over to where the professor lay on the ground, but to his amazement, Xavier was still breathing. Logan didn't get it. It didn't make any sense. When Anna hung onto someone long enough, they died, and their uniqueness was permanently added to her own. Why, he had to wonder, would she leave him alive? What was she planning?

* * *

Anna seemed to have broken contact with Alex about midway through the series of teleportations back to Raven's house, and somehow, had still arrived there before any of the brotherhood's other members, and was lounging on the sofa with a sad look in her eyes when Raven came in the door, followed by the other members of the brotherhood, each wearing their psychic scramblers over their ears.

"Well, I guess that's it." Raven said aloud with a satisfied smile, though she was feeling great worry in her heart, "We're ready to start our takeover of the human race. With the power to control their very thoughts, they can't possibly resist you."

"True," Anna replied, drawing on the education and dignity of the professor as she spoke, "but neither can you anymore, mother."

In that moment, Raven felt her mind being forced open from without, and a flood of images rushed to the front of her thoughts; images of herself as both a military agent and an espionage spy. Raven's special powers to take on the appearance of whoever she wanted to had made her a nightmare to all those who tried to keep secrets from her employers, and she'd been code-named Mystique.

For a moment, Raven struggled to draw her own thoughts back where they belonged, and was able to get out the words... "How... could you?"

"Check your ear, mother." Anna said darkly.

At once, Raven reached up to her left ear, and slowly drew her hand back down in shock and alarm. Her psychic scrambler was missing. She had no idea when it had been taken from her, but she knew who had it, even before Anna dug it out of her pocket and crushed it in her hand. After that, her memories continued on; the time that she'd spent in between two major wars, trying to find out who and what she was, the realization that her power over her own form had made her virtually ageless, and the time she'd spent wandering through the American South and the Midwest, looking for some kind of answer to the question of her own existence, but always being called back again, in time, by the need for truly great agents in espionage. Unlike other women searching for explanations of their existence, however, Raven had had the power to defend herself. She'd been trained by the military, first in guerrilla commando tactics, then in black ops martial arts, then later in survival skills by the navy seals; some of the toughest people on planet Earth. She feared no man.

At last, Anna witnessed the first meeting of Raven and her own father, within Raven's long-forgotten memories. The way they'd seen the sadness and discontent with the state of their own little worlds and eventually, found that it was easy to complain to one another. That had led to a three-week relationship, which had led, in turn, to her conception. That was when things got pretty horrible.

When Raven realized that she was pregnant, she immediately went to see a doctor claiming to be an expert on mutations from birth. His name was Nathan Essex, and at first, Raven had gone to him simply to confirm that her child would, in fact, be a mutant. His reply had been encouraging to her, but it was horrible to Anna as she listened to it.

"I just wanted to be certain that it would be a mutant, like myself."

"All children born of mutants are mutants themselves, whether it's just one parent or both that carry the mutant gene. There are no exceptions to that." Nathan had replied, looking not the least bit outgoing as he spoke, "Why did you care about that, though? Is it really so important that your child be a mutant?"

"Well..." Raven muttered, "I was... This is going to sound stupid, but apparently, more and more mutants are showing up, and... I'd rather we didn't have to use our powers as weapons to get what we needed."

"You're telling me that you have a major dream for the future of mutantkind," Nate had replied with an impressed smile, "and you're hoping your child will help you fulfill it."

"Well, it hasn't gone that far yet..." Raven admitted, "but it seems to me that sooner or later, humans are going to wind up opposing all mutants, and when that happens, I'd rather my own offspring was on my side. After all, there's no guarantee mutants could win a war against humans. We have special powers, but... there are so many of them..."

Nate raised one eyebrow in surprise, then moved over to the windows, drew the blinds down and turned on the lights in the room they were in. Raven seemed a little nervous.

"Are you now telling me that you want the powers of your child to be great and mighty, beyond all others?" Nate asked, his eyes widening and his smile growing broader as he moved closer to her.

"Well, it'd be helpful..." Raven said. She wasn't sure what Nate was suggesting, but it certainly looked as if she'd have to defend herself soon.

"I've done more research than probably anyone else into the subject of mutant genetics." Nate said, his grin transforming into a smirk, "I think I can give your child the genetic gifts that it needs to grow more powerful than any mutant has ever been or ever will be, but I should warn you in advance. There's still a slight chance that this won't work, in which case, the baby will die."

Raven barely hesitated at all before agreeing to the procedure.

Furious, Anna tore through even more of Raven's memories, drawing a satisfying scream of pain from her mother as she witnessed Raven's memory of pulling up to the address where Anna had lived for most of her young life, before discovering her mutant powers. Raven was holding Anna in her arms. Anna was only a few months old, from the looks of her, but she already had a few white hairs along the front of her head.

Quickly, Raven reached the front door and rang the bell. There was Barry Hynes on the other side, and immediately, Raven shoved Anna, who was still asleep, into his arms.

"Listen, Barry." Raven said in urgency, "I've got work again, and I can't afford to take care of a kid anymore. You'll have to look after her for a while. Make sure she gets a good education, and learns respect for her elders. I don't know when I'll be back."

Then Raven was turning to leave, and Barry spoke up at once.

"Wait a minute! Yah can't just drop her in mah arms like this! Ah don't know how to look aftah a kid!"

"Well, you'll have to figure it out." Raven replied, tossing her hair back in a way that revealed the full coldness of her heart at last, "After all, you had as much a hand in creating her as I did, and I've held onto her for over a year."

Then, Raven got into her car and was off, and Anna continued rifling through her mother's other memories; the jobs she'd taken for the military after leaving Anna with Barry, the networking that she'd built up under a number of assumed names and faces, and the friends she'd made who'd helped her to locate the other members of her first brotherhood. A particular friend of hers had been Alex, whom some considered to be a truly unbeatable fighter, and maybe he was, for those with normal human strength. Alex had a way of just sort of absorbing all the skills of whoever he happened to be around, which made him an ideal partner for missions. He'd pick locks, sneak through hallways, and fight opponents with martial arts, while Raven handled the light gun play and heavy espionage in disguise. They'd gone on so many missions together, that nothing could have broken them apart. If Anna hadn't developed such an intense loathing for Raven by that point, she might have felt a little jealous of Alex.

Anna saw how Fred Dukes had been discovered by the two of them after they'd left the military again at the end of the war, and sworn never to fight on the side of the humans again in any more of their battles. She saw how Raven had gotten news from a contact of hers about the death of Barry Hynes, and had rushed out to pick up her daughter, fascinated by the sort of person she'd become, and the sort of powers she'd developed. Then, at last, Anna saw the formation of the first Brotherhood of Mutants, and the rest she'd experienced herself, but one thing more made itself quite apparent to Anna from even Raven's most recent memories. Though Anna had caused Raven a great deal of stress recently, none of it was a sign that Raven cared about her. Raven was still thinking about her only in terms of the use her powers would be in achieving the domination of mutants over humans. She was thinking about Anna like a weapon that was becoming dangerous to its wielder, not like a person with her own needs and desires. Raven had engineered everything about Anna from the very start. In her eyes, none of the feelings or whims that Anna had really mattered, and when she was sure of that, Anna released her mother from her psychic grip, and slumped back onto the couch again.

"Yeah..." Anna muttered, feeling more than a little sad over what she'd just learned, "Ah can't say ah'm too surprised by any of that, but it's very disappointing. Ah guess ah could always just take you for what you did, of course. Then ah'd have your powahs too..."

But when Anna said that, she could see the look of trust still in Fred's eyes as he and the others hung back, waiting for her to make her move. It was a look that defied the situation, the past, and even basic logic, but it was a look that meant more than all the fear, all the scorn and all the fury that Anna had ever seen.

"But then, if ah take you, ah'll have you in mah mind." Anna said with a smirk, "Ah'll see your face whenever ah call out the people ah've taken, and ah'm sick of looking at you. Ah'm sick of your dreams of powah, mother. Ah'm sick of your cause. Ah'm sick of you, and ah'm never going to help you again. Ah'm leaving, and ah'm taking mah scrambler with me."

The other members of the brotherhood moved aside in, in most cases, terror as Anna pushed past them for the outside world, when she heard her mother's voice shouting "Wait!"

"Wh-where... will you go?" Raven asked, though she was still barely able to keep her breathing level.

"Nowhere." Anna replied, "Anywhere. Maybe even everywhere, all at once. Ah'm going to follow in your footsteps, mother. You always wanted me to take the path you chose for me, but ah'm going to take mah own instead, just like you did."

"Oh..." Anna said after taking only a few more steps away from the house, "and there's one more thing ah want to take with me before ah go..."

Suddenly, Anna seemed to just fade away into to nothingness, though those gathered knew that she was simply moving with such speed, that none of them could keep track of her. However, she wasn't the only one who'd vanished...

The sound barrier crackled around the figure of Anna Marie Darkholme as she rocketed through the air over the central United States, carrying the much larger figure of Fredrick J. Dukes in both of her well-clothed arms.

* * *

Xavier had expected never to regain consciousness when the ambush had occurred, and in his sleep, he'd felt very much alone and helpless, though he hadn't dreamed about any specific kinds of images, things or people, or really, been certain of anything until the very moment when he opened his eyes and found himself in the infirmary. Logan wasn't too far away, seated in a chair, and he was looking deeply worried, even when he saw Xavier wake up.

"Are the students nearby?" Xavier asked, feeling tired, but also somewhat refreshed.

"They might be in the library, but we've got classes canceled for a while." Logan replied, "Wherever they are, they ain't within earshot."

"What about Anna and the other intruders?" Xavier asked.

"They got away, but we've got our own problems." Logan muttered angrily, "Five missing mutants, all while we were gone. Sheila says it was a guy all dressed in black."

Xavier slowly grabbed the head of the bed he was resting in until he'd managed to seat himself in an upright position. There was a look of shock on his face, though it was a slightly groggy expression.

"One man subdued and kidnapped all five of them?"

"Sound like anybody we know?" Logan asked knowingly.

"It sounds like it could be several people I'm aware of," Xavier replied, "But I'm not going to leap to conclusions. Why is it so stuffy in here, anyway?"

"Stuffy?" Logan asked, surprised, looking around. To him it seemed, if anything, just a little chilly. There was some sense of sterility in the infirmary, as in most infirmaries, but he wouldn't have called it stuffy.

"Never mind." Xavier said, "Where's my chair? We need to rescue the others." X-men!

The last words were spoken in Professor Xavier's telepathic voice, immediately getting the attention of Piotr, Kurt, Scott, Jubilation, and of course, of Logan, but there was one other person that Xavier had caught the attention of; Alison Blair.

"Professor!" he heard back, then only a moment later, a flood of memories shot through Xavier's mind, as Alison relayed to him in her thoughts about what had happened not long ago.

* * *

Xavier stood in the hallway of his school, watching as Bobby Drake was throwing snowballs at Ororo, who was practicing repelling them with blasts of wind. Xavier was a little chagrined that they were doing it in the middle of the hallway, rather than in the Danger Room, but then, it was probably Bobby who'd started it, and he was simply incorrigible at times.

Off to one side, Xavier could see that Alison had concealed herself behind a screen made of bent light, which surrounded the plants near the entrance when a small, black, liquid-like substance seemed to have seeped through the crack in the mansion's large double-doors, and in a flash, they'd been flung open, and in had stepped a man with white skin like a ghost, or a terrifying clown, dressed entirely in a black outfit that hung around him in long, black strips, each of which quivered as if with a life of their own. The man also had a diamond-shaped gemstone set into his forehead, which was red like a ruby, and even his eyes were as red as blood all over. He had no pupils that Xavier could see, but he didn't, apparently, have any difficulty seeing.

"I am looking," the strange man had said, "for the mutant known as Scott Summers. I have need of his assistance."

"Look, pal, I don't know who you think you are, but this is private property," Bobby said, at which point the man's hand reached all the way across the room in the blink of an eye to clamp down over Bobby's mouth.

"I pay no heed to those foolish laws, crafted by lesser men to impede those with great aims. If you do not know where Scott Summers is, then you are of little use to me, though I might discover a secret or two in those genes of yours..."

However, when the man had stretched his hand out like that, Ororo had started to back away, and when he started to talk about examining Bobby's genes, she aimed a blast of wind at the man's arm, knocking it away from Bobby's face.

"Stay away from him, and stay away from us!" Ororo exclaimed.

"I'm afraid I can't do that. The help of Scott Summers is absolutely essential to my plans." the man said, "One way or another, I'm going to have that help."

"Scott isn't even here, at the moment."

The words had come from Henry Mccoy, who hung from the ceiling just over the hallway's entrance, looking down at the intruder with some curiosity, "Of course, if you'd like to leave a message, I'll be sure to give it to him."

"I don't mean to work through intermediaries." the man replied indignantly, "Just tell me where he is."

"My, my. You are nosey, aren't you?" Mccoy asked, "Alright. The truth is, he's in a military jet, headed in this direction. He'll be back pretty soon. I'd offer you tea in the meantime, but there's the little matter of breaking and entering. You've said that you don't respect the laws of lesser men once already, but some of us are pretty attached to them, I'm afraid."

The man thought it over for a moment, then gave a short "tsk" with the edge of his mouth and looked away.

"I wasted my time in coming here." he said, "I was certain that the students would be left behind. A pity. Now that I've tipped my hand, it would be truly miserable of I had to return without the prize..."

The man was obviously thinking hard about his future courses of action, but at last, it seemed that he'd arrived at a decision.

"Alright." he said, "If he's not here, then all of you are coming with me. If nothing else, I may learn a thing or two from the nature of your mutant powers."

"Yeah, right!" Bobby exclaimed angrily, "You think you can just tell us to come, and we'll..."

However, it seemed that the mysterious stranger had no intention of simply telling them to come along. In only a moment, his whole body was stretching out in liquid-like tentacles, that lashed violently through the whole mansion's front hall. Ororo tried to repel them with wind blasts, but there were too many, and they were coming at her from too many different directions. She didn't have the experience she needed to completely protect herself from all sides. Bobby's first attempt, in turn, to freeze one of the tentacles solid proved to be a huge mistake, as it cracked easily through the ice, enveloping him completely in that black, tar-like substance.

Mccoy's attempt to fight their enemy physically was an ill-fated one. Whatever the substance was that their foe was made of, it reacted more like living glue than any kind of human body, and by feeling along the walls, it had soon found and entrapped Alison as well. When Jean and Sheila had burst from a nearby classroom to try to stop the intruder, Jean had quickly discovered that using her telekinesis to throw a potted plant at her enemy had limited effect, although the stranger's eyes did seem to widen a bit when he saw her use her psychic powers. He captured her, along with the others quickly, and when Sheila pursued him with a chair in her hands, one of his tentacles had shot out and flung her back across the classroom that she'd grabbed the chair from, rendering her helpless and injured.

As the strange being had left the mansion, the memories had faded, because that was all that Alison had seen, but her next thought impulse depicted a large, glass container rising up over her face, and then all was black.

Fortunately, Xavier had been multitasking with his psychic powers. As he'd been watching the images that Alison had sent him, as shocking and horrifying as they'd been, Xavier had been able to also trace Alison's location, and when the images stopped coming, which probably meant that Alison was unconscious, he already had a very good idea of where she, and most likely the others, were being held.

"X-men!" he said telepathically, "Our friends are in grave danger, and I know where they are. The time has come to act."

* * *

Although Professor Xavier had no wish to terrify his students, he wasn't about to send them into battle with an enemy like that unprepared, so he showed them the images that Alison had sent him, and before long, each of them was looking very worried. The enemy seemed, from what they could tell, to be physically-indestructible. That would be a hard type of foe to conquer. Then again, Cain Marko and Kevin McTaggert had both shared that trait, and in the end, each had been defeated. Maybe it was just a matter of finding their strange, new enemy's weakness.

Piotr, like the others, was feeling worried as they approached the building, which looked like a simple factory from the outside, but he had other reasons to worry, besides the enemy that they would soon be facing. Not long ago, the professor had told him that the gemstones that had been found in the ruins of his home held the keys to finding his lost sister, but they hadn't seemed ready to yield many answers, or indeed, to do anything at all in all the time he'd spent studying them on the plane ride back from Muir Island. Like ordinary gemstones, they'd remained the same, hour after hour, revealing to him none of the secrets that might be contained therein. After that, he'd left the plane, worried about his fellow students, and been struck from behind, probably by Anna, and, shamefully, he'd been rendered unconscious. However, it seemed that something about that attack, or maybe his unconsciousness, or maybe some other factor had changed the gems somehow, because when he'd woken up, one of the gems in his pocket had begun to shine with a bright red light from within, and it didn't look like an entirely wholesome red light. Piotr knew that the change in the gems had to mean something, and he had a feeling that when he learned what it meant, he could also learn the location of his sister, and how to save her, but he had no clues as to what the light within the gems could mean. What really worried him at the moment was that despite the new developments, he'd gotten no closer to solving the mystery.

* * *

"I know that we've had problems and differences recently," Xavier said as the car came to a stop outside the building where Alison was apparently being held, and Piotr could feel the words crawling up his spine in particular, "but at the moment, our friends are trapped by a wicked being of unknown origin and intent. I won't insult you by suggesting that any of you might wish to refuse to help in the rescue."

"Good." the word had been said simultaneously by Kurt, Logan and Piotr, each for their own reasons.

"Not that I haven't done worse in the past," Jubilation said, "but aren't we kind of breaking the law?"

"I'm planning to break more'n that." Logan said, "Sometimes, you just gotta do what it takes."

Even Scott seemed to have no desire to argue with that, and soon, the group had left the car; all except for Professor Xavier.

"I'd be little use to you inside the building," Xavier had told them as they left, "but I can help with strategy and communication from out here."

In only a moment, the remaining X-men were at the front door of the factory, none of them entirely certain how they should approach the problem of getting inside.

"We should knock first," Kurt suggested, "Unless someone here plans to try to sneak inside. I could teleport us into this building undetected, if you wish..."

"Knock if you want." Scott replied, carefully-concealed fury in his voice, "I'm planning on blasting this door down if it's not answered in fifteen seconds."

Kurt shrugged shortly and gave a firm knock. As soon as he did so, holes seemed to open up at the sides of the door, and the sound of automatic guns being fired drove them back, but in only a moment, Piotr was in his metallic form, shielding the group from the gunfire as Jubilation tossed a small energy bomb into each of the holes simultaneously. A couple of short explosions later, the bullets had stopped, and Piotr had returned to his human-like form.

"Okay..." Jubilation said, looking irritated, but not openly furious yet, like Scott, "I'd say that's about enough to merit a good ass-kicking."

"Right." Scott replied, stepped forward and removing his glasses.

The bright red beam that shot forth from Scott's eyes looked, if anything, more intense and focused than what Jubilation was used to seeing in their training exercises. It burst forth like a bolt of lightning, and struck the door at a single point, right in the middle, knocking the metal to pieces, and very nearly tearing the entire wall around it to shreds, as the door flew across the chamber to hit the far wall, probably doing a great deal of damage to that part of the factory too. Fortunately, it didn't seem as if anyone had been in the way.

"Stick together." the group heard Professor Xavier advise them in their minds, "I can guide you to the place where I received the last transmission from Alison, but she may have been moved since then, and there's no guarantee that the others are with her."

The form that the professor's directions took was, to Jubilation, a little creepy. Whenever they would hit a corner, a glowing arrow would appear in front of their eyes, pointing them in the direction they needed to travel next. In some ways, it was a little like a video game, though, except that in a video game, you're in very little danger of actually being grabbed and shoved in a tube somewhere.

Fortunately, though, the factory wasn't a very big place, and before long, the group had barged through three more doors, charging through two hallways and an assembly room, in which Piotr had used his armored form to scare away the five people working there. They fled, terrified, for the exits, and at last, the X-men had reached a heavily-armored doorway, which Piotr tore easily from its hinges before shrinking down to a roughly human size and stepping into the room beyond, his intent being to shield the others if any more bullets came their way.

Piotr, however, hadn't really been prepared for the sight that greeted him when he entered that room at the center of the factory.

The room was about nine yards in both length and width, and the ceiling was about a dozen feet up from the top of Piotr's head. Plenty of room, he could see, to move around in. In the center of the room, however, was what looked like a series of large computer terminals, and the walls seemed to be made almost entirely of large, glass tubes, filled with some kind of aqua-colored liquid. Contained in several of those tubes were mutants, only a few of whom the X-men recognized, and many of whom didn't look human at all. Piotr was filled with primal revulsion at the sight, and not just because it made a mockery of all civil liberties. In his greatest nightmares, he had dreams of Illyana, trapped in a tiny space and crying out to him for help, and there some psychopath was doing that very thing to so many mutants who'd done nothing wrong. It made Piotr's blood boil, and his face hardened in rage and hate, even before the stranger made his appearance before them.

A black, ooze-like substance had been dripping from one of the vents in the ceiling since they'd come in, but it seemed that only Logan had focused on it intently. The other horrors in the room would have put anyone else off their guard, but he'd seen horrors far worse in his life, and was instead concerned only with whatever dangers threatened their group. Others might also have mistaken the ooze for an oil leak, but Logan's enhanced sense of smell told him that the black substance didn't smell like oil at all. Sure enough, as it began to gather on the floor in a puddle, rising up to form arms, legs and a face from within it all, it was obvious that they'd found their new enemy.

"You did all of this, monster!" Piotr exclaimed, charging their opponent and lashing out with both fists. Piotr's blows did damage to the chambers in which the mutants were contained, to the computers, and even to the floor, splattering the ink-like man in all directions, but when all was said and done, the being's form had returned to normal, only seconds after the attack ended.

"Come now..." he said as Piotr started to back away, suddenly becoming aware that his strength was useless against such an enemy, "Do you think I would reveal myself to you like this if I had anything to fear from you?"

"You've got lots to fear from me!" Jubilation exclaimed, "Burn right here, then burn in hell!"

As she made that exclamation, bright, multicolored energy bombs flashed forward from her fingertips, embedding themselves at several points in the being's flesh, their highly-ionized energy eating away at the matter that surrounded them. Even the stranger seemed to be concerned by that.

"I've been working on this..." Jubilation said with a grin, "I can use my power to create contained energy that dissolves the bonds in atoms. There won't be anything left of you when I'm done!"

Just like that, the bombs exploded, and the stranger screamed in pain as the explosions covered his body, sucking in black ooze from all directions. At last, when the explosions died down, Jubilation seemed to be breathing hard, and only a small puddle was left on the floor.

"Oops." Jubilation muttered sarcastically, "Missed a spot."

"You certainly did." came a voice from within the puddle, "I was worried for a moment there."

Then, before the very eyes of the group, the puddle began to expand, growing larger and taller, until the stranger stood before them once more, totally back to normal and completely unharmed.

Fear was starting to rise within Logan as he watched their enemy regenerate. If physical damage meant nothing to him, then Logan's claws and Kurt's powers weren't going to be useful either, and there was a strong chance that Scott's optic blasts would be just as ineffective. Quickly, Logan opened his mind to the professor.

"Can you take him, Chuck?" Logan asked.

Charles Xavier saw the stranger through the eyes of Logan and the others, and he'd seen the fantastic powers that the stranger had displayed. He knew what Logan was asking. Logan was asking if the Professor could shut down the stranger's mind as he had that of Cain Marko. However, for some reason, Xavier hadn't been able to get a foothold into that strange man's mind in all the time that he'd known of his existence. There was something in there, keeping him out.

"I can't." Xavier replied, "Something is shielding his mind from me. Try to stall him; find out more about him. Perhaps we'll be able to find a weakness that way..."

Logan didn't like the situation they'd found themselves in at all, but he didn't see what else he could do. He had to take the Professor's advice.

"You just said you revealed yourself to us intentionally." Scott said, "Why? You didn't have to."

"Yes." the man replied, "I did. You see, Scott Summers, I have need of your assistance."

"My assistance?" Scott asked, amazed and flabbergasted.

"You have a power unlike any other, Scott Summers." the stranger said, "Yours is a power that, through time and experience, generates an endless amount of pure, mutant energy, or x-force, as your group seems to be calling it. It is one of only a few ingredients needed to create the ultimate power, and I have great need of that power."

"So what?" Scott asked, "I can't give you my powers, and even if I could, I wouldn't. You kidnapped my friends. The last thing you need is more power."

"This power is not for me alone, or for you." the stranger replied, "Whether you know it or not, Summers, everyone you know is in danger, and has been for quite some time. I had originally hoped that I could acquire a sample of your blood without much hassle, but my emissary was... routed by your group. That's why I came by myself to seek your help. When I discovered that you were no longer in the country, I knew that I needed a means of drawing you here, and I thought that the other mutants at the school might offer me some worthwhile samples of mutant DNA, so I..."

"Kidnapped them." Scott finished the stranger's sentence with a furious scowl.

"Essentially, yes." the stranger replied, "Our Earth is a dangerous place to live, Scott Summers. We're in constant peril from more than just a few sources. If our planet is to continue supporting the life of human and mutant alike, it needs an almighty champion who can tell the difference between good and evil. That is what I hope that your cells will help me to create. Because of this, I ask you once to accept my offer. Give me a sample of your blood willingly, and I will spare all of your friends, and all the other mutants that I've gathered here. I'll return them to the places I collected them from. I won't need them anymore. Well? Is it a deal?"

As the stranger said those words, he held out one of his hands, still pitch black, but looking quite solid, apparently for Scott to shake, however Scott Summers knew what his reply would eventually be. He had to struggle with his feelings to keep them from overwhelming his good judgment, but when he'd taken a moment to think about what the stranger was offering him, he realized something else.

"I don't even know your name."

"No," the stranger replied calmly, "but I know yours, and it's given me the power to locate you and take your friends from you. I won't give that power to someone I don't trust. However, if you simply need something to call me by, then 'Sinister' will suffice."

"Alright, Sinister." Scott said, "In that case, here's my answer. You can take your deal and shove it."

Sinister reacted quite calmly to Scott's reply, lowering his hand slowly for a few moments, then spoke again.

"I suppose I'm not too surprised by that reaction, Scott Summers, but I am curious as to why you would choose to fight me in this manner, rather than simply giving me what I want. A sample of blood is not hard to obtain, nor particularly painful, and certainly not irreplaceable."

"You said this wasn't about you." Scott replied, his fury fading as he explained himself, "It's not about me either. You said that I have the power to help create the ultimate being, who can guard mankind with knowledge of right, but how much control would you want over that 'being' when he or she was just a child? Would you want to decide what schools he went to? Whether he went to church or not? What kinds of morals were taught to him by his parents? Would you want to control his life completely? Maybe raise him or her yourself? Maybe our world does need an almighty guardian to protect it, Sinister, but you're not the person to set that in motion. What do you know about the difference between right and wrong? You broke into my school and kidnapped my friends. I'm not going to let you have my power. You've never given me a reason to trust you with anything, much less with everything I am."

Logan grinned a little when he heard that, although he could tell that they were all in quite a bit of trouble. Pretty soon, Sinister would realize that he had to take what he wanted by force, and he was going to attack. When he did, they were going to have to fly by the seats of their pants, because Logan still hadn't been able to find a weakness in his powers.

"Alright then." Sinister said sadly as Scott's speech finished, "In that case, I suppose you've left me with no choice. I'll simply have to take a sample of your blood without your help. That shouldn't be too difficult."

As Sinister finished his last sentence, his arms started to change their shapes, one forming into a large needle, and the other into a scything blade. In only a moment, he'd stretched forward in an enormous, black rain, and the X-men braced themselves for attack as Scott Summers leaned back, out of the way of Sinister's first attack, until he was looking directly upward, then pulled his glasses off.

Sinister clearly expected Scott's beam to fire directly at him, but that wasn't what happened. Instead, beams fired out from Scott's eyes, upward to a level of nine feet high, in a hundred different directions at once. A hundred tiny beams rushed for the edges of the room, and by the time Sinister saw where they were headed, it was too late.

A hundred small optic blasts made contact with solid metal.

A hundred solid, metal locks were shattered into unrecognizable pieces.

A hundred large, glass enclosures burst open as one, releasing their occupants onto the cold, metal floor of the holding chamber.

"If I were you, I'd run." Scott Summers said as the many mutants got slowly and groggily to their feet, "Something tells me even you can't handle this many different kinds of mutant powers at once."

For the first time in the few minutes that Scott had been acquainted with him, Sinister cursed, but he could see quite plainly that there was no way to salvage the situation anymore. Furious mutants converged on him from all sides as he started degenerating back into a liquid state, to retreat into the ceiling vents once more. At another time, he might have said something while retreating, but there wasn't any point. The X-men, he realized, had won themselves a partial victory.

* * *

The mutants that Scott had saved from Sinister all had very different outlooks and special abilities. Fortunately, Jean, Ororo, Bobby, Alison and Professor McCoy had been among them, but it seemed that the others had very little in common with one another. They sprang from many different types of parents, and many different races, and it seemed that each had their own unique outlook and philosophy. Most of them, however, had mutant abilities which, like McCoy or Kurt, made them look very different from ordinary humans, and most of them were very poor. Over half of the mutants that Sinister had kidnapped had been homeless before being abducted by him. Still, not a single one considered Sinister's hospitality preferable to their previous lifestyle, naturally.

Most of the mutants had taken the time to thank Scott Summers for rescuing them. Scott rarely saw such gratitude in people who lived in nice houses, or especially the very rich, and it set him to thinking about how, perhaps, poverty really can bring out the best in people, if it makes them remember the vital importance of being thankful for things that one is given.

Those who hadn't immediately left to return to their previous style of living also had the opportunity to hear from Scott and the others about Professor Xavier's school. Many expressed interest in it, though of course, they knew they couldn't afford to pay for an education at that, or any other school. It seemed unlikely that the professor would have turned any of them away, though, if they decided to apply.

Some seemed suspicious of the school, while others seemed more inclined to trust Scott. In the end, however, they were all pleased over being given the chance to make the choice for themselves, and the whole affair filled Scott, and a few of the other X-men with hope again. Jean even remarked once that she was almost glad to have been kidnapped, because of all the good it had done in the end.

Within a few weeks, everything seemed to be more or less back to normal at the Xavier Institute. A few new mutant students had joined, and Henry McCoy had set to work on rebuilding and modifying the pieces of the jet that James Braddock had given to them, but for the most part, it was as normal as life ever got in the Xavier Institute.

There was, however, something that Scott couldn't help but notice as classes pressed on, and he and his fellow students continued the learning process together. None of the newer students seemed in any way interested in the X-men, or in joining their ranks. In some ways, however, that made Scott feel pretty good. Things were pretty hard for mutants, after all, but if every mutant had needed to fight for their survival, he would have felt very badly about life.

* * *

It was late in the evening when Raven arrived at the door of the man she'd come to consider her personal expert in genetics and technology. She knocked at the door firmly, but it took several seconds before she heard a reply from within.

"Raven? Is that you?"

"Yes." she replied, agitation coursing through her voice with every word she spoke, "Let me in."

"Alright." Nate said from within the chamber, "You may as well enter, but you know the rules. Don't touch any of my things."

Raven was feeling particularly worried as she opened the door and stepped into Nate's living room, which still doubled as the same kind of messy, disorganized lab that it had been every time she'd entered that room, but one thing was different. Usually when Raven arrived at Nathan's home, he was hard at work on some project of some kind, but when she stepped into his room at that point, he didn't seem to be busy at all. He was just standing in one corner of the room, watching the contents of a cabinet with a glass front, which contained a collection of notebooks and empty beakers with labels on them.

"I assume you came to me with bad news." Nathan Essex said, and Raven could see his frown reflected in the glass front of the cabinet, though he faced away from her as he spoke.

"It's Anna." Raven said, "She acquired the powers of Xavier, and..."

"...and the moment she gained the power to read the thoughts of others, she read yours and left your brotherhood." Essex concluded, "I'm not surprised. From everything you've told me so far, she was something of a delinquent. Still, I'd hoped to have a backup plan in motion for when this time came."

"Backup plan?" Raven asked, confused, "What are you talking about? Anna was our only plan... wasn't she?"

"Was she?" Nathan asked, turning to face Raven with an expression of true curiosity on his face, "Was Anna truly the only plan you'd considered over the course of the time we've known each other? I should prefer to think better of you than that, Raven. You seemed so ambitious when we first met; so eager to get what you wanted from the world... Why have you been so foolish?"

"Foolish?" Raven asked, suddenly becoming furious, "I didn't tell Anna to fall for Fred or rob my mind of all its secrets! I didn't tell her to..."

"That's only half of what I'm talking about." Nate said angrily, "If you're too stubborn to consider that your first plan might fail, that's a horrendous failing. I can't pity you in that case. If you're simply too stupid to formulate multiple different plans at once, that also is a major failing, though it can be forgiven in a common soldier who does nothing but follow orders, as you have in the past. However, I can't begin to imagine what you were thinking by allowing that foolish human to raise the very daughter that you looked to as your last hope! If you hadn't placed Anna in the care of Hynes, she wouldn't have been raised as a human, you would have had the time you needed to teach her what it means to be a mutant, and what her grand destiny was, but most importantly..."

At that point, Essex paused for a moment. He'd started to shout, and he could feel his disguise beginning to loosen, so he carefully shifted his body back into the right configuration, calmed down and continued.

"Most importantly, Anna would not have learned that she could kill the greatest authority figures in her life without consequences. At the time, she was still relatively weak, and you would have had the power to stop her. When she killed Barry Hynes, it set an idea into her thoughts that she was stronger than those around her, and that she could use that strength as she saw fit, with no fear over what others thought. The moment I discovered what had happened, and how she'd grown up, I knew it would eventually lead to this outcome."

"I didn't... I didn't have a choice..." Raven stuttered, not sure what else to say.

"Yes you did." Nate replied, "You could have taken responsibility, and raised your own daughter, instead of passing her off onto some lower life-form who wasn't prepared to deal with her special traits. You really should read more history books, Raven. I suppose you've probably heard of Julius Caesar and his infamous assassination. Caesar was assassinated, not by a single man, or even by two or three, but by a group of people from the roman senate. Caesar had spent his life spreading the domination of Rome all the way to the Atlantic. He was both a mighty leader and a war hero. He'd used brilliant strategies to equip, prepare and lead his men into battle, and he'd helped to win great victories for Rome. If not for him, the Roman Empire never would have come into being. Do you know why Rome's own senators wanted to kill him so desperately?"

Raven suspected there was probably some reason, but she'd long ago forgotten her lessons in roman history.

"Caesar had spent the last several years fighting the influence of the senate in ancient Rome. Once he believed that the Roman Empire had gone as far as he could take it, he'd decided to push aside the senate, and with them, any power in Rome, and in the world that could challenge his own. Caesar was killed because of his obsession with imposing his will on others; because he struggled so hard to force others to do as he told them, he wound up, in the end, pushing them further and further away, until even Marcus Junius Brutus; a man who had once been Caesar's close friend, agreed that he had to be stopped, and personally led the group who murdered him. When you tried to defend yourself just now, Raven, by telling me that you'd never told Anna to do any of those things, you reminded me of the foolishness of Caesar, who focused too much on forcing people to do as he said, until it was his undoing."

Raven was silent for several seconds, but when she finally spoke again, she sounded somewhat lost.

"What should I do?"

"Someone I once considered a good friend of mine once told me" Nate replied, "that it's not always the strongest, fastest, or wisest of a species that survive, but those that are most able to change, adapting to new conditions in their environment. Well, now that you've unleashed a psychotic goddess upon mankind, we're going to have to be able to do some changing. That is the nature of manipulation, of course; the delicate art of tugging at the emotions and impulses of others, so that they do, in the end, what you desire. Had Anna been mine to raise, I should have sculpted her in that way; with delicate care, but there is another who has what I need to create a mutant even more powerful, and I think that with a little work, he's going to fall right into my hands."

"Who is he?" Raven asked, but it was the wrong question. She could tell as soon as she'd asked it.

"Never mind that." Nate replied, "You're better off not knowing for now. You'd only ruin things again by trying to use force instead of finesse. I fought a battle with him today and lost, but whether he knows it or not, he's doing exactly what I wanted him to do."

* * *

Just after his last class of the day on Wednesday, the week following the attack by Sinister, Piotr Rasputin had decided to attend to something he'd been putting off recently. He marched into his room and began removing his paintings from the places he'd put them; under his bed, behind his dresser and even the one on the easel that he'd been so close to finishing. They were beautiful paintings, to be sure, but he didn't need them anymore. Their imagery no longer held any meaning for him.

All at once, Piotr had pulled a trash bag over the old paintings, and marched it downstairs, dropping it next to the barrels at the end of the walkway by the institute's front gates. After that, he'd returned to his room, sure that he was drawing the stares of at least a few people there. It didn't make a difference, though. It was something he'd needed to do. He could no longer be inspired by images of silver and red in combat. He'd experienced it firsthand, and it hadn't given him what he'd really wanted.

However, as Piotr marched upstairs and laid a new sheet of paper out on his easel, he couldn't help but wonder just what he should paint. His inner self, once so clear about what he'd wanted to do, was silent. He held the brush before the easel, but no images appeared in his mind. There was no symbolism he could use; no beautiful satisfaction that he could imagine. If, Piotr slowly realized, he really was losing hope completely, there was no way he could paint.

Piotr had put the paintbrush down, wet but colorless, and sat on his bed without grace or concern. The mystery of Illyana's disappearance still haunted him, and that time, he had no real leads that might have helped to guide him, or at least given him some rescue operation to dream about. It all made him very sad, and it didn't cheer him up any when he heard a knock at the door to his room.

"Enter." he said, without daring to attach much emotion to the word.

The door opened slowly, and Ororo peeked inside, looking confused and worried. In only a moment, she'd stepped through the door completely and closed it behind her.

"I noticed what you were doing." Ororo said, "I wanted to check up on you, to make certain that you were alright."

"No." Piotr replied, "I am not alright, but you have my thanks for concerning yourself with my feelings, Ororo. It is good that you and the others are safe, and that the people of this school are no longer being threatened, but I am afraid that the calm of this place does not echo in my heart. My sister is still missing, and I do not know how to find her. The puzzle of her disappearance is proving a hopeless one."

"I know you aren't planning to give up until you've found her." Ororo said, looking sad as she spoke, "I don't need to encourage you in that, but please try to remember that you aren't the only person you can rely on. When I was captured by Sinister, I was terrified that those I cared about had failed me and disappointed me, and that I was going to die, but I was saved by the X-men. I was saved by the fact that, even when we were divided, you, Scott and the others refused to stop working as a team, or trying to cope with the loss. You didn't have to break the law to come to our rescue; you could have spent lots of time searching for a way to recover us that didn't incriminate you, but you and the others did what was best for us all without a second thought. From now on, I'll know better than to think I can't rely on the X-men when I'm in trouble. Maybe you should remember that too. If you need our help, we're there for you."

Then, Ororo put her hand on Piotr's shoulder for a moment, and after a second or two spent digesting her words, Piotr turned to look into, her eyes and said, with perhaps a small glimmer of hope in his own, "Thank you."

Ororo left Piotr's room only a short time later, and Piotr was sitting on his bed for a while after that, but at last, he decided that he would dig the gemstones out of his pocket again, and continue to study them for a while, and that was when the sound of a short, shocked gasp escaped his lips.

That very morning, four of the gems had been clear, while the fifth had shone with a bright light, but as Piotr held them in his hand while he sat there on his bed, he could see quite plainly that another of the five gemstones had lit up...

* * *

To be continued...


	10. X Institute 10: Criminals

The Xavier Institute Neo

Issue 10

"Criminals"

* * *

As the student body at the Xavier Institute had grown significantly over the last few months, it became somewhat more common for Charles Xavier to receive visitors about this and that. There were bills to pay and landscaping changes to make to the mansion and the grounds, so the Professor was kept very busy with teaching, filling out forms and making arrangements with various potential students and all kinds of other people. Before he knew it, the whole mansion had been transformed. On the outside, it still looked very similar, but inside, there had been a lot of changes.

None of the students felt the least bit shy about being mutants, or about using their mutant abilities around the school. Everything that Professor Xavier had wanted to build was taking shape before his very eyes, and it delighted him to see it all working out so well after he and the X-men had worked so hard and overcome so many trials.

Unfortunately, as hard as Xavier and his students had struggled to make the school work, it was still a very small institution in a very big world, with a lot of big, powerful people in it. One thing that Xavier hadn't anticipated as he'd followed his dreams of a quality school for mutants was interference by the rich.

For a person to gain entry into the institute wasn't hard. All they had to do was arrive, claiming to be there on business, and they could be admitted into Xavier's office and given the chance to speak with the professor himself, probably witnessing any number of mutants and mutant abilities en route. Because it was so easy to get into the building, Professor Xavier probably shouldn't have been surprised to find a total stranger looking at him from across his desk one day; a stranger in a large, expensive business suit with a mustache and somewhat long hair for a man.

"Good day." The professor said, trying to be polite, though he was still feeling very distracted by something he'd read earlier that morning, "Is there something I can do to help you, Mister...?"

"Leland." the man replied, leaning forward across the desk to shake the professor's hand. He was slightly overweight, but given the breadth of his shoulders and the length of his arms, it was barely noticeable, "You may call me Mr. Leland, or Harry if you prefer."

"Good lord..." Xavier muttered, suddenly coming to a realization, "Not the same Harry Leland who manages five of the largest law firms in all of Great Britain."

"Ah." Leland replied with a smile, "It seems my reputation had preceded me. Yes, I am the same man, although that really is only one of many endeavors that I'm involved in at the moment."

"It's an honor to meet you, Mr. Leland." Xavier replied, finally getting around to shaking the larger man's hand, "Should I assume that you're here for business reasons?"

"I am indeed." Leland replied, still smiling, "You see, I'm currently working as part of a larger corporate collaboration, and to be perfectly direct, I would like to know how much you would like in exchange for your school."

The professor felt his heart sink when he heard that. He'd been worrying all morning over an article that he'd read in the paper, which was abnormal for him. The article had mentioned an old friend of his, remarking on the course his life had taken, and it had reminded Xavier of a warning that his friend had once given him.

"You're as good a man as any that exist, Charles," His friend had told him, "but don't let down your guard. Every man who acquires power or money misuses it, and most of them are willing to resort to criminal measures to get what they want. Your mutant powers will make you a target for them. That's why sooner or later, if you want to do right, you'll need to become a criminal."

At the time, Xavier hadn't taken the comment with the seriousness it had deserved, chiding his friend for being such a pessimist, but as he sat there in his office, faced with a powerful man who wished to purchase his school; a school that was plainly not shy about accepting mutants, he could feel the very target that his friend had mentioned positioning itself across his chest.

* * *

Jean Grey had a textbook on one hand and a magazine on the other as she sat in the library of the Institute and tried her best to concentrate, but suddenly, a feeling of grave worry came over her, and she knew that something was wrong.

* * *

"I am sorry, Mr. Leland," Xavier replied, "but although your offer is generous, I'm afraid that it is impossible for me to accept it. I still hold full ownership and full control of this property because I believe in what I am doing here. Even when a buyer's intentions are honorable ones, selling the school would likely put its future in jeopardy. I'm afraid I can't do that."

"Well, I'm sorry we couldn't have worked something out." Leland replied sadly as he handed Xavier his business card, "If you change your mind, do be sure to give me a call."

"I certainly will." Xavier remarked with a smile, "Goodbye, Mr. Leland."

Then, Harry Leland turned and left by the door to Xavier's office, and only a moment later, had traveled down the hallway to the main entry hall, and left the Institute completely. In a civilized world, that might well have been the end of it.

However, no sooner was Harry Leland off the grounds and entering the back of his limousine, than he whipped out his cell phone and started dialing a familiar number.

"Black King? This is Black Bishop."

"What news?"

"It went exactly as you said it would, Black King. This man, Charles Xavier may be a powerful one, but he is also moral to the point of naiveté. The whole time that I met with him, I'm certain that he never tried to read my thoughts."

"Charles Xavier has no reason to feel threatened yet, Black Bishop. He hasn't even heard of our plan. He may even think he's honestly helping mutants by teaching them how to fit in. By the way, how would you evaluate his character? What are the man's morals?"

"I'm afraid he told me very little about his morals, but he is definitely determined to remain in control of what's taught at his school."

"Naturally. Are all the other preparations in place?"

"Within six hours, they will be." Leland said, "At that point, I'll only need to wait for yourself and the others to arrive."

"It'll take us eight hours to arrive in New York." Black King responded over the phone, "Take no direct action until then."

Then the Black King hung up, and Leland folded up his phone, sticking it back into his jacket pocket. He preferred to act indirectly when pursuing his goals, but sometimes, there just wasn't any choice.

* * *

Jean Grey knew that something was wrong. She couldn't pin it down to a specific problem or person; it was just a feeling. Over the last few weeks, she'd been feeling more and more as if there was an uneasy stuffiness in the air around the entire institute. The feeling of unease and worry that Jean had been experiencing only seemed to fade when she left the property, and even then, it didn't vanish completely. It was almost as if she'd just come out of an area recently sprayed by a skunk, and was dragging the source of the unpleasantness around with her wherever she went.

However, as unpleasant as the feeling was, Jean had no idea what could have been causing it, and what's more, it had never been quite as intense as just a moment ago, when she'd been distracted from her reading.

Jean looked around for a few seconds, hoping to discover some reason for the strange feeling, but as usual, only her fellow students were nearby; the same people she'd been talking with and enjoying the company of for weeks, and in a couple of cases, months.

One of those people, however, seemed to notice her looking at him, and stepped over to her location. In just a moment, he was standing behind Jean, looking at her in concern as she tried to look away.

"Jean? You look ill. Is something wrong?"

It was a rare gesture of compassion from Piotr, who, admittedly, had been starting to loosen up since his alleged rampage through Russia. Jean still had a hard time picturing Piotr doing half the things that her fellow students said he had. She didn't know him that well, of course, but he'd always been so quiet and... but maybe that was the problem. Piotr's quiet nature was an easy disguise to wear. Beneath that silence, any type of rage and pain might lurk, finding neither vent nor sympathy in those who, in Piotr's eyes, would never understand. Jean had heard of psychological theories like that from Professor Xavier once, but she'd still never thought that Piotr himself might be that way; might be driven by the craving for revenge and satisfaction; a yearning so powerful that it could drive a man to kill and destroy with abandon in search of that one objective.

Jean still wasn't sure what Piotr's objective was, and it seemed as if Piotr wasn't a hundred percent sure either, since his return from Russia, but she was sure that he was already under a great deal of stress, and she didn't want to burden him with hers.

"I... I'll be alright." Jean replied as quickly as she could, "I just felt a little dizzy for a moment."

"Do not worry, Jean." Piotr replied, though he didn't try to smile, "If you feel too ill, I am certain that Professor Mccoy would be willing to take a look at you."

Then, however, Piotr put his hand on Jean's shoulder, perhaps in an attempt to comfort her. The problem was that rather than being comforting, the moment his hand touched her, she felt the stuffy, worrying sensation increasing all around her, and more importantly, she started to feel weak.

"Th... That's a good idea. I'd better see Doctor Mccoy." she said quickly, wrenching herself out of Piotr's grasp, and half-stumbling down the hall towards the stairs leading into the med lab.

Piotr had hardly ever seen Jean so flustered. She and the professor had both seemed a little under the weather recently, but if there was a bug going around, Piotr certainly hadn't caught it. For a moment, he wondered what could cause such a reaction in a person like Jean, who was usually so well-composed and organized. It was a puzzle, and Piotr already had a puzzle of his own to solve. In just a moment, he dug the gemstones back out of his pocket and saw, in amazement, that for the first time in weeks, another had lit up. Three gems, therefore, were lit, seemingly from within, while two more remained dull and normal-looking, and every single time one of them had been lit, it had been just after he'd touched someone. What, Piotr wondered, was the connection? Jean Grey, Ororo Munroe and Anna... There had to be something they all had in common. They were all mutants, of course, but Piotr had shaken hands with Kurt after that morning's exercises, and the gems hadn't reacted then. They were all girls, naturally, but he doubted that was the connection. Could it be a combination of factors, or was there one central factor that he was overlooking?

Of course, if it was a combination of factors, that combination was a pretty obvious one. Female mutants of any sort might trigger the gems, which gave Piotr an idea. Supposing that touching a specific person could only trigger one of the gems, that meant that the theory of whether female mutants made the gems glow could be disproved quite well by any of the female students at the Xavier Institute. However, after thinking about it for a minute, Piotr decided that it would be less difficult to ask a fellow X-man, which meant that he needed to find Jubilation.

* * *

Although the Institute had thrived over the last several weeks, Kurt had felt a bit uneasy for some reason. It wasn't really a sick feeling, nor did he really feel depressed or sluggish. There was just a sense, every now and then that something wasn't right, and he couldn't figure out exactly what it was or how to stop it. The only thing that he could be certain he should do was pray for guidance, so every morning, he stood upside down on the ceiling, and spent nearly half an hour in prayer. Though his self-doubts and worries over his own resolve had diminished greatly since the affair with Kevin McTaggert, somehow he could feel that his greatest trials and greatest decisions still lay ahead.

* * *

Jubilation's daily work and training was, in her mind, finished as the afternoon turned into evening, which meant that it was time to kick back and ignore the demands of authority figures. In Jubilation's case, she'd sometimes wander into the city and get into a fight, or sometimes she'd sneak into a movie, or loiter in a store someplace, but of all the activities that she enjoyed most, the single most acceptable was what she was doing then; lounging across the three seats of the couch, clicking the remote's channel up and down buttons at ten-second intervals. There wasn't much that was worth watching on television, which was why she never really watched tv; she just moved up and down on the channels while staring off into the intervening space between herself and the television screen, feeling her muscles loosen up from the morning's exercises. It was like falling asleep, but more interactive and less boring.

All the same, Jubilation's recreational activities did distract her enough that she didn't notice the sound of large, powerful footsteps approaching her from behind. When Piotr spoke, she was a little startled, though she was also spaced-out enough that she didn't show it.

"This is going to sound strange, but may I shake your hand?"

"Hmm..." Jubilation muttered, trying to work up the will to form cohesive words, "Why? What'd I do now?"

"I am not seeking to punish you." Piotr replied. His relationship with Jubilation had been very badly strained over the last several weeks, and he knew it well enough. She was angry with him, and he couldn't exactly blame her. Still, he needed her help. He couldn't just give up.

"I wish to shake your hand as part of an experiment." Piotr admitted, at which point Jubilation turned off the television and sat up in the couch.

"Yeah." she said, putting one arm over the back of the couch as she looked at him over her shoulder, "I figured you weren't just trying to be nice. Look, Peter, there's a line that you just don't cross, and..."

"If you will not shake my hand, simply say so." Piotr replied, starting to get angry, "I have no time for further lectures on my past conduct."

Jubilation fell silent when Piotr said that, though it was obvious that she'd wanted to continue her tirade. Piotr, at least, wasn't going to just sit there and listen to it. Jubilation hated it when people blew her off, but at least it was still her choice what to do next. That one part of her situation; that opportunity to choose her next action, didn't feel too bad, and that was probably the reason she made her choice the way she did.

"Alright." Jubilation replied with a scowl, "I'll shake your hand, but it doesn't mean anything."

"Indeed." Piotr replied, holding one hand out while keeping his other hand closed at one side, as if he were holding something in it. In just a moment, Jubilation had grabbed Piotr's hand, and gave it a quick shake, then pulled back at once and sat back down on the couch. It was as much contact with him as she wanted.

Piotr, however, was feeling very disappointed, and it wasn't Jubilation's hostility towards him that made him feel that way. When he looked at the gemstones in his other hand, he could see that nothing about them had changed since that afternoon. If it wasn't female mutants that triggered the strange glow within them, he wondered, what was it?

* * *

The evening pressed on as dusk faded to darkness on the horizon, and through it all, Scott Summers leapt, dove and struck out with his arms, legs and mutant optic blasts, continuing in his training long after everyone else had left from either disinterest or exhaustion. Neither of those factors could stop Scott, who'd finally been able to stop worrying about Sinister, Anna and the other enemies they'd faced and get back to what he really loved doing most of all.

However, midway through the exercise, Scott thought he heard something, and was momentarily distracted. Soon, a large, mechanical arm emerged from one of the walls, striking him across the face and knocking him to the ground.

"Stop exercise!" Scott demanded, causing all of the various traps and obstacles to stop in their tracks as he slowly got to his feet. His left cheek was aching, but he'd suffered worse.

The reason why Scott had even bothered to stop the exercise wasn't his failure to dodge that first blow, but the distraction that had led to that. Just before the blow had come down, he'd noticed a faint sound, or... something else. It wasn't exactly like a sound. It was more like the feeling Scott got whenever the Professor communicated with him telepathically; as if there was something very large and powerful nearby, that was totally invisible to the eye, but which was brushing against his own consciousness in a large, precise way. Scott wouldn't even have noticed it if he hadn't been so used to listening for the professor's telepathic call, but there was definitely a psychic presence, just close enough to be felt, even though being felt wasn't its intention. It wasn't speaking to him telepathically per se, but it was definitely there, brushing over him like a light wind.

* * *

"There are only three still awake." the woman code-named White Queen said as she sat in the limousine with the others of her group, "One in the gym, who has energy projection powers, which he fires from his eyes, one in his quarters, studying some kind of gemstones, and one who... One who's headed right towards us!"

Almost as soon as she said that, however, six razor-sharp, metal blades drove in through the door right next to her, forcing her to back away as the door was cut from its connecting hinges and tossed to the ground by the short, hairy man who soon stood outside, three metal claws protruding from the back of each of his clenched fists.

"This here's private property, honey," Logan said, his fists still tightly clenched, "and in this state, it's still legal to rough up trespassers. Give me a damn good reason not to in the next ten seconds."

"Do you greet all visitors this way?" the woman asked from within the car, showing grave irritation.

"Nah." Logan replied, "Just the ones I catch tryin' ta read my thoughts without permission. What's the real story here?"

Logan's complaint was a legitimate one, though the woman knew she could probably still win a court case over the defacement of her limo. It was an issue that was harder to face when staring down a series of long, sharp, indestructible claws, which meant that the time had come to make her real move.

The woman's real name was Emma Frost, and she was a mutant. She was also, by no coincidence at all, very rich and powerful, and very unscrupulous, and she'd come to the Xavier Institute for a reason. She wasn't just going to leave because a man told her she should, whether he was armed or not.

"Now don't be so hasty." Emma said as she slid both legs out of the car simultaneously. Suddenly, Logan started to feel his own legs getting weak as the blond-haired woman slowly rose from her seat and stepped towards him.

She was dressed all in gleaming white with gloves, boots and a tight... well, there wasn't a word to describe it, but whatever it was, it was wrapped around her torso in just such a way as to accentuate her natural body shape, and it seemed to be done up along the front with a short, white rope. Her shoulder-length, blond hair fell down around one side of her face as she looked at Logan in amusement. He could feel his ironclad control slipping away as she advanced on him. It wasn't like anything he'd ever felt. It was as if every part of his body was refusing to attack. He was sweating like a pig, and his heartbeat was increasing to the point where he felt, at any moment, like he might suffer a heart attack if she got any closer. It was only then, with his pulse quickening beyond what was healthy for a mutant like himself, that Logan understood what was going on.

"She's a psychic." he remembered silently, "She's doing all this with her powers. Gotta stop it... Can't let her control my feelings..."

However, when Logan closed his eyes, all he could see was her. He tried to turn away, but that feeling was still there, and soon, he was seeing her in the grass at his feet, in the night sky overhead, in the reflective surface of the limousine... Logan had been caught off guard, and he was losing control of himself as she stretched her powers around him like an enormous, soft quilt. He couldn't let her control him, however. He had to keep fighting.

Reacting with the greatest force of will that he could bring to bear against his new enemy, Logan finally managed to make his body respond to his own wishes, rather than hers, and had lunged forward only a moment later, driving his claws in her direction. She seemed shocked and amazed by his force of will, but the blow was aimed so hastily, that she had no trouble dodging it and leaping back, strengthening her attempts to control his thoughts as she did so. However, by that point, he had a handhold in his control, and he continued to make progress through his own mind as they pitted their wills against each other on increasingly even terms. At last, however, she seemed to understand that it was only a matter of time before he regained full control, and if that happened, he wouldn't hesitate to kill her. She could see it in his mind as his conscious, controllable thoughts were put on the back burner, and baser, more primal instincts took over. She was definitely losing ground against Logan in a way she never had before, and it was that loss of ground more than anything else that motivated her to shout in panic.

"King!"

Almost instantly, a tall man in a business suit leapt from the car and charged in Logan's direction. Logan reacted quickly, cutting the shoulder of the man's suit with his claws, but for some reason, though his claws came down on the man's skin, they wouldn't go any further in. It was like trying to use them to cut something even tougher than metal.

Logan was still too disoriented from the woman's attack to be sure of anything about the man. All he knew was that in just a moment, the man had lifted him over his head, and a few seconds later, he was flying through the air at high speeds, certain that his next contact with a solid surface would be a very painful one.

* * *

"Well, that couldn't have been more disastrous." Emma said as Logan collided hard with something made of wood in the distance.

"You said that no one but the professor could have sensed your presence." the man calling himself the Black King replied.

"I don't know how this happened." Emma insisted angrily, "There were no other telepaths in the building. It doesn't make sense."

"Well, it doesn't matter anyway." the Black King replied, "Did that wake anyone?"

"Only half the institute." Emma responded with a short curse.

"Well, we can't just pull back now that you've been seen." the Black King decided, "Activate the disrupters and radio our operatives to warn them that they'll be walking into a metahuman war zone."

* * *

Logan was one of only two people at the Institute who would have heard the sound of the gun, because it fired from outside the mansion, and was equipped with a silencer, but nevertheless, when it had shot the door handle off its hinges, a single pair of pointed ears snapped to attention halfway across the grounds. Like most of the Institute's population, Kurt had been woken by the sound of a tree being split in two, but the sound of the silenced gunshot had gotten his attention just as quickly, when no one else had heard it over the commotion that was being raised as everyone got up to see what had happened out in the front grounds.

The moment that Kurt heard the gunfire, he disappeared in a puff of smoke, to reappear in the danger room control booth, and quickly grabbed the microphone on the top of the control panel. He could see that Scott had gotten back to his training after only a brief pause, but Kurt was going to have to interrupt him again.

"End exercise." Kurt said into the microphone, "Scott, there are intruders on the grounds. They have guns, and they are trying to enter through the back way. I am going to try and stop them."

Then Kurt was gone again. Normally, Kurt would have gone to the professor first, but he suspected that the professor, being a powerful telepath, already knew.

When Kurt reappeared, it was sideways on the wall just above the back entrance. He could hear the hurried footsteps of the gunmen running down the hall, and judging the distance carefully, disappeared again, reappearing right behind them. The foul odor left behind by his teleportation power quickly got the attention of the gunmen, who spun around, firing, but Kurt dove forward into their midst, spinning his legs around over his head, and using his mutant adhesion power to latch his limbs onto theirs, knocking the whole group to the ground in one second, then disappearing again. Kurt could hear more footsteps approaching, but he knew who they belonged to. His only real concern was in getting the guns away from those men.

In another quick maneuver, Kurt had appeared in the middle of a nearby classroom, where two young mutants were hiding, and leapt out of the classroom door, to seize a pair of guns from the hands of two of the gunmen, just as they were getting to their feet. Then, in another puff of smoke, he was gone again.

Kurt appeared a moment later inside the danger room itself to deposit the weapons, then vanished again, pleased to see that Scott was no longer there. When he returned to the hallway, he was even more pleased by what he saw. Broken pieces of former guns lay strewn across the hallway as five dazed men stood together, not sure what to do next. Scott was straightening his glasses, giving Kurt some indication of just how the three remaining gunmen had gotten their guns destroyed.

"I wouldn't move anymore, if I were you." Scott warned the group, "I can hit a fly from a hundred yards away with these eyes of mine, but I'm not sure I could make them weak enough to keep from killing you."

Kurt finally took a moment to look the intruders over in more than a tactical way as Scott said that. Each was dressed all in black, and they wore black masks with night vision goggles, and some kind of body armor over their chests. Whoever they were, they were working with someone who had money.

"Their employers are obviously rich." Scott noted, voicing Kurt's observations aloud, "We shouldn't assume that these are the only invaders we'll have to deal with tonight."

"Right." Kurt replied, "I wonder why the professor has not summoned the rest of the group."

"All of you hold still." Scott said to the intruders, and then lifted his glasses a bit again, and once more, Kurt saw Scott using his power to its fullest, as a beam of force spread out from his eyes, splitting into ten distinct beams, each of which was no thicker than a hair. A second later, the beams had torn through air, cloth and metal, traveling precisely through the space between the heads of the intruders and their ears. Sure enough, five of those ten blasts had found and destroyed psychic scramblers concealed under the masks of the formerly well-armed crooks.

"I thought so." Scott said with a frown, "They were shielded from psychic detection."

"Scott!" the voice of the professor exclaimed into his mind, "Are you...?"

"I have these five covered, professor," Scott thought back silently, "but if I were you, I'd wake up the X-men. There may be more of them."

"X-men." Professor Xavier thought back into the minds of the seven students and two adults whom he'd come to refer to by that name, "There has been a break-in. Bobby, you call the police, and then join the rest of us in a search of the grounds. If there are other intruders, they must be disarmed before they can hurt anyone."

* * *

At the silent command from the professor, the group took action at once. Ororo opened the window of her room and flew out, still in her night gown, sweeping the grounds with a low-level breeze. It was a mutant ability she'd only recently mastered; using a gentle breeze to sense things in a radar-like way. Where the breeze was interrupted, there was an object or person. The problem with the technique, and its major weakness, was that she had to work very hard to ignore the interruptions that were normal, like the trees and walls on the grounds, and it required her full concentration.

* * *

"Black Bishop." the Black King said into his radio, "The one in the air needs to be immobilized."

"Done." Leland replied, looking in the direction of Ororo.

* * *

Suddenly, Ororo felt her arms and legs becoming like lead. Her whole body felt more than twice as heavy as it had been a moment before, as if gravity had suddenly increased for her, and she lost her concentration, and began to descend rapidly towards the ground. It took all her strength of will to keep from hitting the ground with lethal speed, and even so, darkness covered her upon impact.

* * *

"No reply anymore." Emma said, turning off her radio, which was intended to communicate with their five special agents, "I'm sure they've been captured."

"Then there's no choice anymore." the Black King said in disappointment, "I was hoping to avoid a large-scale fight, but... Well, sometimes trouble just finds you. Signal the others. We're going in."

* * *

Piotr had only had time to shove the gemstones into his pocket and rush downstairs when he heard the call to action sent his way by the powerful mind of Charles Xavier. Even so, he was the second one on the scene after Kurt. A moment or two was spent waiting for Jean and Jubilation to arrive, during which time they received specific instructions from the professor about which parts of the institute grounds each of them was to search, but none of that information wound up being important, because only a moment later, the front doors splintered in all directions.

Suddenly, the X-men had to defend themselves from flying bits of wood, as well as four new intruders, also dressed in black and wearing black masks. One crouched on all fours, another seemed very broad and a little overweight, but all four of them appeared to be male.

In a flash, the one on all fours had righted himself and lunged forward, shrugging off the debris easily as he headed towards the children. Piotr transformed quickly into a fully metallic form, though he didn't try to increase his size any, as Jean used her telekinetic powers to send the shards of wood flying back towards the intruders again.

However, the wooden shards seemed to fall to the ground before they could reach the large man, as if each suddenly weighed fifty pounds, and although a shard or two hit the other new arrivals, they seemed utterly unaffected by them.

At once, the X-men started to feel a crushing pressure descending over them, as if gravity itself had suddenly been increased. Kurt suspected it was a mutant power of some kind, and immediately vanished in a puff of smoke, reappearing behind the group as the man who'd previously been on all fours lifted Piotr easily into the air, earning his shock and amazement, but not his defeat.

Although the strange man had been able to lift Piotr so easily, Piotr was no mere block of stone to be picked up and thrown. In a flash, he'd reacted to the smaller man by grabbing his arms in his own solid, metal hands, and hurling him backwards through the entryway into one of his colleagues, who caught the man in mid-air with one hand. By that point, there couldn't be any denying that the new intruders were either all or mostly mutants, as Piotr landed on his feet once more with a loud crash.

Next, both Jean and Jubilation had collapsed to the ground under the crushing pressure being leveled against them by the mutant power of one of their enemies. Taking the hint as to which one it might be, Kurt leapt into the air, then delivered a swift kick with both of his legs towards the back of the larger man's head. However, just a moment before his attack would have connected, a series of metal cords shot out from the arm of one of the others, grabbing him and throwing him back out into the yard. Kurt teleported in midair a moment later, avoiding sharp contact with anything too hard, but he'd definitely been no help to the girls. However, it turned out just a moment later that at least one of the girls didn't need his help.

With one last, Herculean effort, Jubilation had been able to lift one of her arms upward, aiming it towards the larger man, and a moment later, a glowing blue bomb of energy shot out in his direction. Like everything else that had been fired at him, it hit the floor before it could reach him, but the explosion blew both he and the one with the metal cords out the door. Only the last of their enemies seemed unaffected by the blast, and Piotr aimed to remedy that as gravity was quickly returning to normal.

Rushing forward, Piotr struck the remaining intruder in the middle of his black mask, but for some reason, he didn't even flinch, grabbing Piotr by the arm and hurling him out of the mansion and into the air. Piotr had only been knocked aside that quickly once before, by Anna, which meant that the foes they were facing were truly powerful enough to defeat them physically. Even his strength couldn't match what his enemies were drawing forth.

"White!" the man who'd just thrown Piotr aside exclaimed as he rushed forward, trying to strike down the two X-men who remained in the main hall of the mansion, "Maneuver 15, now!"

In only a second, the one with the cords seemed to have drawn them back into his arm, and rushed back towards the mansion, knocking aside Kurt, who'd appeared with a sword in one hand, trying to stop the invader again. In a moment, he was inside the mansion and running down the hall. Jubilation tried to aim a bomb at him, but in that moment when she was distracted; the incredibly strong one had grabbed her by one arm, and struck her lightly in the head, rendering her unconscious.

Jean Grey always had a hard time focusing her full powers, but no time was harder than in the middle of a fight, and yet, when she saw her friends falling away helplessly, one after another, she knew that there was no other way to claim victory. She needed to concentrate with her whole mind, and show the invaders just how powerful she really was.

As the strong one headed towards her with all the speed he could, he suddenly found himself rising into the air, then in another second, he'd flown back out of the mansion doors, as Jean Grey seemed to float forward through the door like a phantom, pursuing the one who seemed so strong; the one who had on his person a force even greater than her telekinetic powers; a force against which she could test her mutant powers once more.

* * *

The man who went by the code name of White King grinned as he knocked open the doors to Charles Xavier's study, but his grin faded quickly when he saw the hairy figure facing him from the other side of the door. The figure was large, broad, and carried a weapon that looked very dangerous. It was shaped like a gun, but approximately five times as large, and along the edges, it seemed to be glowing with a thick, blue, phosphorescent liquid that was inside.

"Not all burglars would receive as warm a reception as this." the hairy beast said, "Still, you and your colleagues seemed to merit more than the usual traps and alarms."

For a few moments, the two simply stood facing one another, and then, the intruder spoke up, less in disappointment or fear than simple confusion.

"Well, this is a surprise." he said, "I didn't think the GSD Cannon Mark 2 was available to the public."

"It's not." the beast replied, "This is the Mark 3; my own design. It implements a randomized computer code within the structured one that makes the death of its target far quicker and more merciful. I'm sure you don't want to test out its full capabilities, though."

"No." the intruder said, "No; that would be premature."

However, as the two had talked, the intruder had been buying time. A slot had opened in what looked like his back, as he'd talked with the large, blue-furred beast, and a miniature device about the size of a baseball had floated silently out, responding to his mental commands as it floated through the air, keeping to the shadows. It looked like a thin, metal cigar with four small wings on its edges, and as the intruder had talked with the beast, it had flown around the office silently, until it was eventually behind the beast's head. Then, in a moment, it lunged forward, striking the beast hard in the back of his head, and knocking him forward, towards the ground. In that moment, as his weapon lowered, the intruder brought out his metal cords again, and they seized both the weapon and the beast, bending the gun into an unusable shape, and tossing the beast hard against a nearby bookcase. In just a moment, he was unconscious and covered in books, as the intruder stepped over to the professor's computer and removed one of his gloves. Turning on the computer, he quickly seemed to snap one of his fingers in two, as if the joints on his finger were only attached to one another by hinges from the inside. Inside his fingertip was a computer port, which he'd inserted, in just a moment, into the computer. After only five seconds, he removed it again, smiling under the black mask that concealed his face as he turned the computer off, opened the window, and jumped outside, snapping his finger joint back into position as the flying object returned to its previous housing inside the back of the White King.

Quickly, the White King spoke aloud, and his words were transmitted to his colleagues by radio.

"This is White. Let's get out of here."

Then, White King was sprinting off across the grounds towards the car that the group had arrived in. They'd have to leave their first team of specialists behind, but they could be rescued later, using legitimate means in the courts. However, what White King didn't know was that the rest of his team was already off the grounds. After Jubilation had rendered Leland insensible, his mutant power to increase the effect of gravity upon objects and people had worn off, and both Jean and Ororo had begun using their powers to toss the other three intruders into the air.

Black King wasn't afraid of anyone, no matter how great their strength was, but as high winds picked up around him, holding him in mid-air, away from anything that he could grab with the vast strength he'd absorbed, he could see that he was facing a problem that he couldn't solve so easily. He had several weapons on his person, but none of them could have been thrown through the barrier of winds that surrounded him and his two colleagues; the White and Black Bishops. Powerful, invisible forces held them in place in the air, preventing them from attacking the X-men anymore, and worse yet, they'd been captured by the two young girls who stood in mid-air below them; one with hair that was a bright, fiery red, while the other's was milky white.

Under the enormously loud noise of the strong winds that surrounded him, Black King spoke into his radio.

"Right now, we're in mid-air in the power of two mutant girls. Immobilize them somehow, and we can leave."

"I have to do everything." White King complained over the radio as he turned the corner of the mansion and removed his glove again. That time, his hand seemed almost to turn itself inside out, transforming into a weapon nozzle that quickly began to glow, and before Jean or Ororo even noticed him, a blast of flame had shot out over fifty feet into the air, rushing towards the two mutant girls. They reacted with all the speed they'd been trained to use, but the flame distracted them from the three invaders they'd been trying to hold captive, and in only a moment, Black King and his two associates were on the ground again, though Leland was still unconscious.

Leaping quickly across the yard before Ororo or Jean had time to get their wits back together, Black King grabbed Leland in one hand and sprinted away, followed by the man on all fours. White King; the one who'd fired the flame thrower a moment before, had decided to exit the grounds by another route, but when Ororo and Jean had finished dealing with the airborne flames, there was no sign of the intruders anymore.

* * *

The team of five who'd first tried to attack the institute went with the police for questioning without a struggle after their masks had been removed about half an hour after the fight was over, though they chose to exercise their right to silence as they were taken away. On the whole, the entire affair felt like a loss to the professor, because the stuffy, oppressive atmosphere that had been building around the institute had only increased since the fight. It might even have been a sign that things were a lot worse than they seemed. Whoever those people had been, they were different from the brotherhood who'd attacked the institute so many times in the past. They didn't feel like a simple gang of selfish mutants seeking immediate, direct power for themselves, which was how the brotherhood had come across in each of their attacks on the mansion grounds. The new attackers had been professionals.

Worries long forgotten had been brought to the surface of the professor's mind once again with chilling clarity; worries about the safety of his students and his school; his ability to peacefully teach students who were powerful by their nature, in a world where people so often seek power for their own ends. Charles Xavier wasn't the sort of person who worried about things for no reason, but he could already see that the more powerful a person was, the more people would want to use that power, and in gaining so many mutant students, and establishing such a firm defense for them as the X-men, Charles Xavier had become, over the course of the last year, one of the most powerful people on Earth. He knew that whether he liked it or not, he and the X-men were in more danger from other mutants, and even from ordinary humans than they'd ever been. It was something that needed to be confronted.

On the morning following the attack, after everyone had gotten the chance to get a little sleep, and recover from what had happened, Professor Xavier called the X-men into his study and locked the door. The time had come to talk about what had happened in the past, and what was in store for them in the future.

Piotr and Logan stood at the back of the room, both having fully recovered from the pounding they'd taken the previous day, although Piotr looked a little antsy. Of course, Xavier had no way of knowing why Piotr was so concerned without reading his thoughts, but if he had known, he might have acted differently. Piotr was worried, because another of the gemstones that had been found in the ruins of his house had lit up, leaving only one more dull and normal-looking. He'd still been unable to determine any common cause for all four of them suddenly coming alive with an unexplainable light from within, and it was bothering him more than ever, but if he'd trusted Xavier enough to tell him the conclusions he'd drawn that very morning, the Professor might have realized what was really happening. As always, Piotr remained silent about his problems, and as such, everyone was left in the dark about them.

Jubilation was seated in the largest of the three armchairs that the Professor had moved into his study for meetings such as that one, chewing gum of some kind loudly, as if intending to get on someone's nerves. Jean was seated in another of the chairs, with Scott leaning on the same chair's headrest from behind. Ororo had taken the third seat, as Bobby stood in on corner, playing with a snowball. Kurt crouched on the ceiling as Henry Mccoy and Shiela Ramsey stood across from the rest of the group at the other side of the room. Soon, Xavier had wheeled himself behind his desk, and sighed heavily before speaking.

"It has been a long time since I truly felt this terrified for those I care about most." Xavier said sadly, both eyes still closed, "There are so many dangers that face us now... people of every aim and ability seem to want to use us for one reason or another. This is the feeling that led to my hesitation about keeping the school open at first. I am unwilling to let the people I care about live in constant fear of attack."

"You made the right choice, professor." Scott interrupted quickly, "We all have mutant powers, and that means we're going to face all the dangers that powerful people face, no matter what we do. You helped prepare us to face those dangers. That was what we really needed."

Xavier cast Scott a glance for a moment, then looked away again. He knew all of that was true. It wasn't why he'd brought the subject up, though.

"Are you truly happy" Xavier asked "with the need to repel so many attacks, again and again, against the place that you live?"

"Well..." Scott paused for a moment, "Well, no... but... there's nothing I can really do about..."

However, as Scott said that, the professor's lips twisted into an amused smirk, and Scott could see that something about what he'd just said had been a mistake.

"Are you claiming both power and helplessness?" Xavier asked, still grinning, "One would think that was a contradiction in terms."

"It's... It's not that simple." Scott tried to reply, but Xavier's smile didn't fade, and in just a moment, he'd picked up a newspaper from his desk and held it out in Scott's direction. After looking around the room for a moment or two, Scott stepped forward and took the paper from the professor, not sure what else to do, as everyone else in the room continued to watch the two of them.

"Read the article that I've circled." Xavier said, "Read it aloud please."

"Metahuman vigilante establishes public identity." Scott read aloud from the paper, "A recent series of brutal beatings in the southern United States, believed to have been perpetrated by a group calling itself the Friends Of Humanity was recently brought to an end by the vigilante methods of the powerful metahuman believed to be the same man who recently liberated several dozen alleged mutants from the Kolei Prison in southern Asia a few months ago. As with most vigilante acts, the man's methods were brutal and direct, but even after strangling three alleged members of the Friends Of Humanity into comas from which they are expected to recover, and destroying an entire building believed to have been used by the group as a base of operations in that area, the vigilante mutant took a moment to speak with reporters on the scene."

"He introduced himself only as Magneto, and would not answer any reporter who questioned the morality of his actions, saying only that police justice had failed both humans and mutants in the past, and that therefore, vigilante justice was the only true justice left in the world. When asked if he was ready to accept responsibility for having committed blatant crimes in multiple countries, he replied that responsibility was easily accepted, but that he would not submit himself to the consequences imposed by bureaucrats and other humans who represented the system of laws that had failed so many in the past."

"In short, it seems that Magneto has accepted that he is a criminal, in that he has committed crimes, but believes that he is justified in committing crimes, because he thinks that he has no other choice if he's going to do what he thinks is right. When he'd finished describing himself and his reasoning for what he'd done, Magneto rose into the air and flew away without another word, leaving many of us with many more unanswered questions."

"A part of me wants to dismiss Magneto as simply a crook, who's searching for some means of justifying immoral actions, but throughout the history of our country, I have to admit that he was right to point out many problems with our justice system. There have been many times when our laws have failed to protect us from gangs, bigots and terrorists, or even from our own government. It takes no level of pessimism to say that our current legal system isn't perfect, and we should definitely be doing the best we can to find better solutions to our problems, but those are solutions that are too complicated for one person to simply decide upon, and impose by force."

That was the end of the section that the professor had circled, and Xavier watched Scott's expression with interest as he'd read the article. Scott Summers was feeling both confused, and a little amazed by what he'd just read.

"Magneto is a friend of mine." Xavier said after a moment had passed, and he'd taken the newspaper back, "He believes that mutants deserve the chance to live without fear of others trying to control them, or use them, and although he and I have had our disagreements in the past, in that much we agree."

"In fact," Xavier continued, "Do any of you think that we, or anyone, should live in fear of being attacked, captured or used?"

Naturally, no one answered. It was a simple thing to agree on.

"Magneto" Xavier continued after a moment, "believes that people must be criminals, or at least, must be willing to commit crimes in order to do right, but I didn't really believe that myself until now. I tried to convince myself that I could build a life based on teaching and learning, and that people would simply be willing to accept that. I tried to live in peace with the rest of the world, but time and time again, the world has shown me its unwillingness to live in peace with us. Our acceptance into mankind is something that we must earn, just as I've always said, but in the meantime, I must be willing to pay the price for doing what's truly best. I must be willing to break the law. I must be as strong as you, Scott."

"What?" Scott asked, confused and worried by what he was hearing, "Me? What do you mean, sir?"

"When Bobby, Jean and the others were abducted recently," Xavier replied, "you broke the law to rescue them. You chose to do right, instead of doing what was acceptable. I've always had problems seeing the difference between those two. I may need to depend on you to help me with that in the future... all of you. You're still young, and you have a better feel for the modern world than I do. If the X-men are going to become criminals, I'll need your help to remind me of the real difference between right and wrong. I'm not so sure I'm qualified to make that determination anymore."

"I still trust you, professor," Scott said with a smile, "and if I have to be a criminal to protect the X-men, that's just what I'll be."

"I trust you too." Ororo piped up.

"Ditto." Jubilation said. The others were quick to follow, and with every new voice, proclaiming trust for him, in spite of every problem they faced, and every new line they were going to have to cross, Xavier felt his own strength growing. It was going to work out just fine.

"Of course, we still have many specific plans to make." Xavier said, smiling, "Like our recent enemies, masks would seem to make sense. It would be imprudent to break the law without them. False names, to use while in disguise would also be a good idea."

"We can work out the specifics later." Hank Mccoy said, "For now, the important thing is the decision to stick together and protect one another, no matter what the law says."

"I have already said that much." Kurt said with a smile, "I am an X-man, one hundred percent."

One by one, the X-men approached closer to the professor's desk with smiles on their faces as they shook his hand, or asked a few questions, or even just said a word or two about what they wanted their disguise to look like. In the end, even Piotr approached and rested one hand on the professor's shoulder.

Unfortunately, that was when all Hell broke loose.

* * *

To be continued...

* * *

A Warning from the Author.

Well, as I've said in the past, my intention with the Neoverse has been to approach Marvel Comics in a positive, and yet reasonably realistic light. In terms of the X-men, this means that plotlines that hinge on all humans being violent, cowardly buffoons (dreadfully common in modern Marvel) will not happen in the Neoverse. I am, however, going to have to do a darker storyline very shortly. In fact, it may well be the start of the darkest story that I will ever write. I wanted to drop that warning just in case there were kids watching.

I also wanted to say, however, that although the story itself will be darker in tone, I still intend to draw attention, in some ways, to the better qualities of mankind, while still admitting that the worse ones exist. In any case, I hope you'll be able to enjoy it as much as I enjoyed writing it.

-Bra1n1ac-


	11. X Institute 11: Secret of the Gems

The Xavier Institute Neo

Issue 11

"Secret of the Gems"

* * *

The moment that Piotr put his hand on the Professor's shoulder, he began to feel something hot in one of his pockets, and it was heating up like an oven. Everyone nearby felt the heat, as Piotr transformed into his metallic body, but the heat was becoming intense enough that he could feel it, even through the strong metal protection that he'd trained so hard to develop. Quickly, Piotr dug the source of the problem from his pockets; the red gemstones; all five of them shining brightly, and radiating intense heat, to almost the point of being on fire. At any moment, Piotr realized, they would burst into flames, and he wasn't the only one there who realized that.

It only took Logan a second to rush to the window and shove it open, and he didn't even need to give Piotr a gesture to indicate what he wanted from the teenage Russian. Piotr didn't like the idea of losing his only clue as to the location of his sister, but nonetheless, he threw the stones out into the yard, where they landed in a circle, just before the inevitable happened.

All the students and teachers alike watched in horror as fire began to spring forth from the red gemstones, forming into a fiery circle that grew higher and higher. If the gemstones had done such a thing inside the building, it would undoubtedly have been burned to the ground, just like Piotr's home in Russia. In only a moment more, five bright lights shot outwards from the circle of fire, striking walls and trees, and where those lights struck, they left large burn-marks; each one nearly three feet wide.

At last, the fire seemed to die away, and in its place, there was a circle on the lawn that shone in a bright red light. For almost thirty more seconds, nothing happened, but then, the circle had stopped glowing, and things seemed to be more or less back to normal.

"What..." Scott asked as he looked out into the lawn in alarm and terror, "What was that?"

"I do not know," Piotr replied, "but I suspect that it was responsible for what happened to my family."

"I do not feel good about this." Kurt said from nearby, "There is something truly wicked about those stones, Piotr."

Piotr made no attempt to deny that as he and the others headed for the exits. At that point, Professor Xavier quickly closed his eyes and spoke to the other students at the Xavier Institute, saying "Students, may I have your attention? There has been an unusual occurrence recently in the front yard; however it may still pose a danger. I have designated a few individuals to investigate it, and determine if it is a threat or not. Try to remain calm, and away from the site of the incident until we're certain that there is no imminent danger."

Then, the professor opened his mind once again to the X-men, to see for himself what they were seeing out on the front lawn.

* * *

Of course, Kurt had been the first to arrive on the scene, and was turning a lighter shade of blue as the others approached. Something about what he'd just seen had been even more unsettling than the flames, and the beams of light, and as the others got closer, they could see it too. The gems were still shining brightly, and they were still arranged in a circle on the ground. In between them, where the ring of fire had been a short time ago, the ground seemed to have been stained red, leaving a circular symbol there, connecting the gems to one another, and inside that circle, there was the shape of a five-pointed star.

Kurt had turned away from the symbol on the ground and was breathing pretty hard as the others approached. When Piotr got within a few inches of the red circle, however, Kurt shouted to him in a stern, confident voice.

"Do not touch it, Piotr! None of you touch it!"

Piotr pulled back in response, but there was a look of indignation and discontent on his face as he did so.

"Why? Have you seen any of this before?"

"The gems I do not recognize." Kurt explained firmly, "I have never seen a pillar of fire, or beams of light of the sort that we have all just witnessed, but I do recognize the symbol on the ground. It is a very ancient symbol, universally recognized as the banner of blasphemy. It is the pentagram; the symbol of Satan as the cross is the symbol of Christ. Do not touch it."

Piotr still felt the temptation most strongly to pursue his sister, no matter where that pursuit took him, but nevertheless, he drew back even further.

"Look at this." Logan said after giving the students a moment to finish their own discussion, "Looks like them light beams left something behind."

Sure enough, the students saw what he was pointing to, and it was definitely the very spot where one of the light beams had struck the side of the mansion. On that wall was a large, charred mark; shaped like some kind of letter in another language. It was a type of lettering that neither Logan nor the students recognized, but when Sheila Ramsey saw it, she looked unsettled.

"What do you suppose it means?" Ororo asked as she floated just a little closer to it.

"It means 'endings.'" Sheila replied, drawing all eyes to her. Not even Xavier or Mccoy had known that.

"Some kinda death symbol?" Logan asked, interested, "Satan wants us all to die?"

"This symbol carries connotations much more negative than death." Sheila replied, shaking her head, "It's Babylonian script; a very early form. The Babylonians held very strong beliefs about the afterlife, so for them, the idea of dying was only a transition from one world into the next. The symbol for endings, however, was very different. It was hardly ever used, because its meaning was so severe. 'Endings' referred to those who offended the gods so badly that the gods swept them off the Earth, as if they had never been. It was considered the worst of all fates; becoming nothing at all. This might well have been the most terrifying of all the symbols used in ancient Babylon."

"There were five light beams." Mccoy said, looking around warily, "If each left behind a symbol, we should locate them all first, before anyone tries to tamper with the circle."

Logan just nodded, and then sniffed the air carefully for the scent of the particular kind of burns they were looking for. In just a moment, that scent had pointed him in four different directions.

* * *

Within half an hour, Professor Xavier had six symbols on six pieces of paper lying on his desk, each with a description and translation written underneath it. Not all of them were sketched perfectly in every way, but it had been easy enough for Sheila to recognize them once she'd determined what they were. Each was a symbol for endings or evil, and each hailed from a different culture of the ancient world. In those cultures, each symbol would have been the most terrifying, and had the worst connotations associated with it, even if, in modern America, people no longer attributed simple symbols or words exclusively to evil. Modern man had become flippant about the very concept of true evil, as if unready to admit that it even existed, or that it should be treated with caution. Only the older societies, it seemed, had had that kind of good sense.

"It might just be one of the students playing a trick." Mccoy suggested as the X-men had gathered in Xavier's office again, "Some of them do have the ability to start and control fires."

"How many are up on Babylonian symbols?" Logan asked cynically, "You're givin' em too much credit, Hank."

"What about last night's intruders?" Scott asked, "Could it be something they left behind?"

"I think not." Piotr replied, "The gemstones were found among the ashes of my house and parents, accompanied by the Omega symbol charred into our barn, just as it is now burned into the institute walls. Whatever happened at my house happened here, and I believe the gems are the key to it all."

"If the symbols are not some prank; if they are genuine, and if their source is what I think it is, then we are all in considerable danger for our lives, and our souls as well." Kurt insisted, "I recommend great caution in investigating this."

"Naturally." Xavier replied as he looked over the symbols, listening to the advice of the X-men, "Caution is always good advice, but I know that nothing I say will actually dissuade Piotr from investigating this further. Besides, if there is even a chance that his sister is being held by malevolent forces, whether or not those forces are human, I think that we have an obligation to do what we can to save her."

"Thank you, Professor." Piotr replied, though he still didn't smile.

"This didn't happen on its own." Xavier concluded after thinking about it for a moment, "Piotr, I think that it's important for you to tell us everything that led up to this occurrence."

Piotr paused for a moment to look around the room, as if hoping for some alternative, but it wasn't long before his eyes met the eyes of Ororo, and Piotr remembered what she'd told him. She'd made the decision to trust the X-men, and Piotr had to make the same choice.

Quickly, Piotr told them everything he knew about the gems; where Logan had found them, when the gems had begun glowing, and how it seemed to have been a result of touching certain people while carrying the gemstones. Piotr even mentioned the conclusions he'd previously drawn about what probably "triggered" the gems, and how he'd disproved his conclusions. At last, he finished his descriptions, and Jubilation's jaw seemed to have fallen open. The others looked surprised and somewhat confused, but when Piotr had finished describing what had happened, Xavier just nodded.

"Supposing that you are right, and the gems are reacting to the people that you've touched, there must be a common factor to them all. What... what if these gems are like small machines, performing some function under just the right circumstances? Could they be just doing what they were programmed to do, like a computer? I mean, if they did precisely the same thing both times that they were 'activated...'"

"I see!" Mccoy said with an eager smile, "I see what you're saying, professor. If those red gems aren't really gems... If they're really small computers, and all they do is carry out one function again and again, then the reason why they activated when they did, is that they were receiving something from us that they needed to perform their function. The question then becomes; 'what does every computer need in order to function right?'"

"Don't you just have to plug it in?" Jubilation asked as she continued chewing her gum.

"That's it exactly." Mccoy replied, his smile broadening as he turned to look at Jubilation for a moment, "All computers need power. In fact, all machines that operate independent of input by a living organism rely on power of some kind. Not all machines, though, rely on the same kind of power. Some use kinetic power, some depend on heat energy, others solar power, and at this day in age, as Miss Lee has just reminded us, a great many depend on simple, electrical power. So, it stands to reason that if those gemstones started working because you touched certain people, Piotr, that means that they needed a specific kind of power, and had some means of absorbing it through you. That, it turn, would lead me to believe that the kind of power they run on is found inside some kinds of people, and not others, and that they just needed to absorb enough in order to enable them to perform their function. So far, the list of people you've given me, Piotr, has presented me with a few clues. You mentioned Anna and Ororo, one of the recent invaders, as well as both Professor Xavier and Jean Grey. Since we have almost no information on the men who attacked us last night, let's start by focusing on trying to find some connection between the others."

Piotr simply nodded for a moment in reply, before Mccoy continued.

"Well, three of them are your fellow X-men, and two are psychics. To use their power, they need to establish a firmer connection between mind and will, training their minds to harness their mutant powers in a very different way than other mutants. That might be a possible connection."

"That's not it." Ororo said, "That's not how my powers work, for instance."

Mccoy was silent for a few moments, thinking that over, and it was Bobby who spoke next.

"There's gotta be some connection. I mean, aside from all that mind and will stuff, what else do we know about psychic powers?"

"For quite some time, many major religions linked anyone claiming to be a psychic to sorcerous practices like divination." Kurt suggested, "It would not surprise me to learn that the gems hinge upon energies that have connections to witchcraft; even remote ones."

Ororo's expression froze when she heard Kurt say that.

"I..." she muttered, "I... have never been a witch, however..."

"Ororo?" Piotr asked, "What is it?"

"My... My mother..." Ororo said, looking away from the others, "My mother once told me that my people had a strong magical power inside that we have not used for many generations..."

"Then what about Anna?" Scott asked.

"Well, she did absorb the powers of Thor at one point." Xavier noted, "If he truly was a god of thunder, then it's not hard to see where her magic came from. Supposing that 'magic' by that definition really is the connection, and touching any one of us was sufficient to supply power to one of the gems, then the natural conclusion is that by supplying power to all five, Piotr inadvertently activated these small computers, and caused them to... perform their function, whatever it was."

"That's what's been bugging me too, Chuck." Logan said, still frowning, "We've still got no idea what the jewels really did. They made fire and shot symbols into our walls, but what else? Last time it happened, none of us were close enough to see what else was going on."

"Are you suggesting that we attempt to recreate the occurrence somehow?" Xavier asked.

Xavier had not really asked the question to anyone but Logan, but both Kurt and Piotr replied quickly, with very different results.

"No!" Kurt exclaimed.

"Yes!" Piotr insisted.

Xavier felt some doubt, for a moment, over his own decision to follow the subject through to its logical conclusion, but then, Illyana's fate was something that had to be dealt with, whether it brought his students into conflict with one another or not. In fact, in that instance, he wasn't above taking sides.

"Kurt..." Professor Xavier said, "I... understand your objections to this entire affair. I find it very unsettling myself, but there is a chance that this may be the only way that Piotr will ever learn the truth about what happened to his sister. Would you not take a similar risk if it were your loved one?"

"No, Professor, I would not." Kurt replied sternly, turning to face him, "If Illyana Rasputin is alive and needs us to rescue her from some impending danger after all this time; that would be worth a calculated risk, but I would not risk the safety of my soul for any man. I will stand by the X-men in mortal danger of any sort, but if you decide to activate those gemstones again, you must do so without my assistance."

"What if we discover that we need your help afterwards?" Xavier asked, "What if something that we find in the gems endangers us?"

"On the contrary, I expect you to be endangered by what you find in there." Kurt replied somewhat angrily, "I will stand by your side in defending you from anything that you find within the gems, but I will take no steps to help you to explore them further. As far as I am concerned, they are evil of the basest sort, and a man of good conscience will fight evil for the safety of his friends, but he will not experiment with it, even if his friends choose to."

Xavier nodded. It was a complicated reply, but it was the one he'd expected Kurt to make, and it was, he supposed, the best one he could expect.

"Should I assume" Xavier asked, "that you won't try to stand in our way if we attempt to reactivate the gems?"

"I must advise you not to make that attempt," Kurt said, more sternly than ever, "but now that you have heard my advice... God gives men freedom, and I can do no less."

"Piotr, when you activated the gemstones the first time, were they glowing as they are now?" Xavier asked, but Piotr shook his head.

"No." he replied, "The gems were dull and normal when I first found them. Now that their function is complete, I am surprised that they have not turned dull again."

"There is a chance that they've retained some magic inside them from what you let them absorb before, like a reserve battery." Mccoy suggested, "If that's true, it would explain why they were dull after having sat for years under the wreckage of your house, but not immediately after the lightshow just now. It also means that we only have a certain amount of time to make use of them. After a while, their magic will start to fade, and gathering it again would take a lot of work, and probably put you in a lot of danger."

"We should make use of the gems at once, to help me find my sister." Piotr exclaimed, "If there is power still left in them, only a small amount should be needed. If Jean or the professor touches them now, they may reveal the circle of fire again."

Kurt sighed in disappointment as he listened to the others making those plans, but there wasn't much more to be said. Just after having decided that they would be willing to break the law to protect one another, the X-men had made an even darker choice, and Kurt wasn't sure that he could be one of them as they continued along that path.

* * *

Nevertheless, Kurt stood off to one side of the group a few hours later, when the school day had ended, and preparations had been made. They all seemed to think it was just like any other kind of investigation. Some, like Bobby and Jean, did look a little nervous, but on the whole, they didn't seem to understand the gravity of what they were about to attempt. They were just eager to help their friend settle up with the truth about his past.

In fact, Kurt wondered, just then, whether he might not be overreacting, and whether all of his superstitions were really just that. Was Piotr's peace of mind really the important thing, or were they placing everyone they knew in grave danger by what they were doing there on that morning? There was no way to really be sure, and that uncertainty made Kurt nervous and edgy. The whole affair lingered much too close to Hell for his tastes.

On Kurt's side of things, nothing had changed. Some of the students looked nervous, others looked supportive of Piotr's proactive will, but Kurt stood to one side of what they were doing, just as he'd said he would, far enough away from them, he thought, that he wouldn't be seen as responsible for what was about to happen. He even had his sword buckled to his back, clearly expecting the whole group to be walking right into violence of some kind or another. It was a strange reversal of circumstance. So often, Piotr seemed like he was on the outside of the things that the X-men were involved in, and yet, suddenly, he was at the center of it all, and Kurt was left out. It was the only way it could have happened, but it was still strange and ironic.

At last, in that last moment, Kurt's muscles tightened up, as Jean touched one of the gemstones, and quickly drew back. As expected, intense heat was starting to build once more around the gems.

As one, the X-men stood back, with Bobby ready at any moment to throw a wall of ice up around all of them, for all the good it was likely to do. Soon, the whole affair had started all over again. Fire built upwards inside that circle, traveling higher and higher into the heavens, until none of them could even see its top anymore. Then came the lights, rushing forth from the positions of the gems, and forcing the X-men to duck out of the way, to avoid being caught in those scarring lights, and having a symbol of some grim sort burned into their very flesh. At last, the lights faded, the flames died down, and all that was left was the circle, but what they saw in that circle was nothing like the simple red lines they'd seen just moments before.

Piotr and Logan were the first who dared to approach the evil-looking circle and stare into it, and inside that circle, they saw a vast landscape of nightmarish images; red grass with tiny, black slivers sticking out from each blade, walls that seemed designed to look like the faces of suffering people, a sunless world heated only from within, where lava flows and water pools were in opposition to each other, and yet, both were needed just for the survival of the living things that dwelled there. The images were like a very grim nightmare, and it wasn't long before both Piotr and Logan turned back away from them.

Logan, however, hadn't turned away from a weak heart. He'd seen things just as horrifying when he'd been at war, and he'd become somewhat hardened to horrifying sights as a result. He'd turned away to grab a small, gray rock from the ground nearby, and in a moment, he'd thrown it into the images that the group was seeing. Sure enough, the rock fell into the image, to land on the bright red grass, on the other side. The grass seemed to wave towards the rock for a moment when it landed, then returned to its previous position. Logan looked satisfied when he saw that, however.

"Thought so." Logan said aloud, "This ain't just some picture; it's a portal; a doorway. We jump in here and we'll come out on the other side, wherever it is."

"Then what are we waiting for?" Piotr asked, "Illyana..."

"Rein it in, shiny." Logan said, grabbing Piotr by the shoulders for a moment, "We've still got no idea where we'd be headed, or how to get back. Besides, do you think your little sister could still be alive after spending years in a place like that?"

"My sister was the purest of souls." Piotr said, looking Logan directly in the eyes, "No person ever sought so much to see the best in everything and everyone, or to show love to others. In a universe where a loving God governs all, I cannot imagine that she would simply die as a victim of evil. Even Kurt said that..."

"I said that she might have survived, in the best of cases." Kurt interrupted from behind the group as the image on the ground faded and the gems continued to gleam in their places within the red circle, "That does not mean that I think she is still alive. I think it is most likely that we will find Illyana's charred skeleton as soon as we enter that hellish world."

Piotr scowled when Kurt said that, but then replied, "At least then I would know."

"But what would that knowledge cost you?" Kurt asked, "Your life? The lives of your friends? Perhaps even our very souls?"

"You need not join me." Piotr said, trying to speak slowly, just to drive his point home, "As for my own soul, I must know who is responsible for the deaths of my parents, and I must know the fate of my sister. Without that knowledge, I will go mad, and my soul will be lost anyway."

"You have many wonderful opportunities, Kurt, but that pit is the only opportunity that I have to move on and have a future, because it is my only chance to make peace with my past."

Kurt looked suspicious for a moment, but when he spoke again, the edge to his voice had softened.

"Tell me, Piotr. How much did you love your family?"

"No man has ever loved their family as I loved mine!" Piotr exclaimed angrily, "I would have braved any danger for them, and fought any enemy."

"Is it love that drives you now?" Kurt asked, "If it is purely out of love for your sister that you wish to enter this world, then your soul will not be lost, even if you die. I do not fear for the other X-men. If they decide to join you in this quest, they will do so out of love for you, and so their souls will reap no punishments for stepping through the gates of Hell, but I would prefer to be certain that it is love of your family, and not hatred of their killers, or fear of not knowing that truly drives you. Love is the centerpiece of all that is good, and it burns brightly, even in the deepest darkness. Is it love that drives you, Piotr?"

Piotr just nodded once, and Kurt sighed again.

"I have sworn not to stand in the way of all this. I will even agree to join you in this foolish mission, but I would recommend making a few preparations before diving into this. Do not leap into this gateway until there is nothing more that you can do to prepare for it."

Piotr grinned a little, as some of the other X-men ran off to gather a few things, in preparation for the voluntary mission they were going to be taking part in. In the end, only Kurt, Piotr, Bobby, Jean and the teachers remained. Most of the teachers looked very worried, but that was to be expected. It was probably the first time that Jean had ever really felt comfortable talking to Bobby about anything, and for all she knew, it might be the last, so she decided to take advantage of the situation.

"So..." Jean said as she approached Bobby, "I guess we're the only ones staying behind this time."

"Huh?" Bobby asked, confused, "Why would we do that?"

"Well... um..." Jean wasn't sure what to say. She remembered all the brave things that Bobby had done in the past, but she hadn't expected him to join in that particular mission. Jean was so terrified of what she'd seen already that she'd been looking for some kind of excuse to not accompany the others, but as Bobby had basically just told her that he was, in fact, joining the mission, that meant that his hesitation to go and get anything in preparation for the mission signified that, far from being afraid of what he might find on the other side of that gateway, Bobby was confident in his own abilities to the point of arrogance. It made Jean feel worse than ever, and Bobby hadn't even meant to make her feel that way.

Of course the worst part wasn't feeling like a coward herself. The worst part was being afraid of what the others would think of her, if they knew just how scared she was. Jean didn't usually worry about what Bobby thought of her, because he sometimes seemed like a bit of a jerk, but the others... She cared what the others thought. Quickly, she thought up an excuse for staying behind, and tried to deploy it as fast as she could.

"I'm sorry. I thought you'd decided to stay behind just to keep me company."

"Why are you staying here, Jean?" Bobby asked.

"Well, I have to." Jean replied quickly, "I have to be here to keep the gateway open."

Bobby seemed to think about that for a moment, then asked "Couldn't the professor do it?"

Jean's mind raced to find an answer to that question, but she eventually decided upon something simple and pragmatic.

"He'd have to be able to bend down and touch the stones." Jean said, "The professor is in a wheelchair, Bobby. It's not so easy for him to do that."

"Oh. Right." Bobby noted aloud, then after thinking about it for a second or two, he said "Too bad, I guess."

"Huh?" Jean asked, confused by his words, "What do you mean 'too bad?'"

"Well, it's just that we hardly ever go on missions all together as a team." Bobby said, "I'd just kinda hoped that... you know... just this once... considering how nasty things are likely to get..."

Jean took a deep breath, and then let it out through her nose. She felt like striking herself across the face. It was true; they were a team, and they didn't always get to tackle missions as a single unit. Most of the time, they'd each have individual tasks to take care of, and need to split up or implement some complicated strategy in smaller groups, or else they'd been separated from one another by something they couldn't help. Jean knew that, on some level, but her fear had blinded her to the importance of that fact. Bobby, however, had seen it clearly.

The reason that Jean felt like slapping herself was that having gone to such great lengths to come up with a reason why she couldn't join them, and in particular, having assumed that Bobby would be staying behind as well... Jean had supposed, at first, that Bobby was afraid for his life, like her, but... For some reason that Jean couldn't fathom, Bobby didn't seem to have any fears at all; at least no personal ones. He played so many silly pranks, and did so much boasting about how great he was, but if he really had the courage and confidence to never doubt himself, even in the face of Hell, maybe he had a right to boast. Maybe Bobby Drake really was the most uncanny of all the mutants who'd ever lived. Jubilation thought he was an idiot, and Ororo thought that he needed to grow up, but at that point, for the first time, Jean felt intimidated by Bobby. He was like a mountain; unshaken by even the most powerful forces. How could she stand next to someone like that and claim to be worthy to be his friend?

Jean still didn't really like Bobby all that much, and she still didn't find him attractive in any way, but she was starting to realize that the very things that made Bobby seem so silly and immature represented a large gap in her own personal growth. She had a lot that she needed to improve on in the future.

Jean felt pretty lousy about needing to improve so much in something as important as courage and confidence, but what really tore her up inside just them was the realization that as much as she needed to improve, she couldn't do it then. Even though her reason for staying behind had been thrown together in just a few seconds, it was still a valid reason. She really was needed to open the gateway again, and retrieve them when the mission was complete, and just as Bobby had said, it really was too bad. Jean Grey had the power to help them against whatever they were about to face, but the chance to use that experience to earn greater courage for herself was passing her by.

When Jubes, Ororo and Scott returned from gathering the things they thought they'd need in that hellish place, however, Jean felt strong fear rising inside of her again. Maybe, she realized, she'd have the chance to test her courage again anyway. Just the idea of reaching out and touching those gemstones to open that gateway, and maybe send her friends to their deaths was sending chills through her whole body. It was, however, a fear that she needed to face, and she was up to the task. In just a few moments, she'd brushed her left hand against one of the gems.

Just as before, heat built and built, fire sprung up from the ground, and beams of light struck the same five points again, charring them with the same five letters. Then, as the fire died down, the images appeared; images of things and places ideal for causing physical suffering; images of a world where survival was truly Hell; images of the place that Piotr insisted on going. Without a moment's hesitation, Piotr had transformed into his metal body, and leapt forward, descending into the pit before him without even so much as a word. Logan was close behind, followed by Kurt. Xavier closed his eyes as they went, one by one. He didn't like the situation any more than Kurt did, and he wasn't eager to watch his students travel to what might well be their deaths. Still, Scott and Bobby followed closely behind the others, then Jubilation and Ororo, and then the gateway had vanished again, and the X-men had disappeared from their world.

* * *

It was, as it turned out, a good thing that Logan and Piotr had been the first to descend into the nightmarish world beyond the gateway, because the bright red grass at their feet reacted to their presence by pointing quickly in their direction, as it had with the rock that Logan had previously tossed into their midst, and then, each blade of grass seemed to open up, and snap at Logan's ankles like a hundred large mosquitoes. It seemed that the grass was uninterested in Piotr, apparently realizing that it couldn't penetrate his metal skin, but if any of the others had touched the grass, they would undoubtedly have been hurt by it.

Thinking quickly, Piotr reached up, and grabbed Jubilation and Scott from the air in his arms. The others, he knew, had their own means of defending themselves.

"Don't touch the grass!" Logan exclaimed, which caused Kurt, Ororo and Bobby to react. Ororo slowed her descent, to stop herself from coming into contact with the red strands. Kurt, meanwhile, had teleported to the ceiling of the chamber they'd found themselves in, adhering to the stone above their heads. Bobby, however, seemed unsure of what to do at first, until he made a quick decision, and large patches of ice started spreading out all over his body. When he slammed against the ground, right in the middle of the red grass, a cloud of crystal-like ice fragments rose into the air, and several of the X-men winced. They all hoped that he was alright.

However, they had nothing to worry about. When Bobby stood upright a few moments later, they could all see that his body was covered almost completely in ice, and that he'd therefore been protected from the attacks of the bloodthirsty grass. What's more, most of the plants that had been underneath him were also covered in a thick frost, and were slowly dying. Too slowly, Jubilation thought.

As Bobby and Logan vacated the location of the red grass, Jubilation aimed her hands downward, and concentrated her X-force in a very specific way, dwelling on speed and rapid motion, at even the smallest level, until she could see it in her head. Then, shaping her X-force into a hundred small globes, Jubilation shot them forth from her hands like firecrackers, and whenever they made contact with the ground around her, there was a burst of flame that consumed large sections of the carnivorous flora. All of the plants had been burned away in seconds after that, leaving behind a mere shelf of stone to stand on.

"Gee, I'm glad I iced up on the way down." Bobby said as he looked at the small, rapidly-vanishing wounds on and around Logan's ankles.

"It's nothin'." Logan replied seconds before the last of the wounds was gone, "We just gotta figure things out, and get back home. Let's stick together as long as we're here. Jean'll probably open the gateway again in a few minutes to check on us, but let's mark this spot just in case."

Swiftly, Logan clenched his right fist, causing razor-sharp metal claws to pop out. Then, in another moment, he'd driven those claws into the ground, with the intention of dragging them through the dirt, to leave a marker of where they'd been, and which direction they'd gone. However, when Logan's claws made contact with the ground, something happened that he hadn't expected. The entire ground underneath him seemed to tremble, and the many face-shapes on the walls, which he'd thought were sculptures, opened their eyes and mouths, and began to scream in agony and alarm.

Logan quickly drew his claws back out of the ground, and sure enough, the ground was definitely made of dirt, just like the kind of dirt found in New York, but the X-men had been noticed by whatever beings inhabited that strange world, and the unearthly wailing continued on, and on, and on, all around them...

* * *

Miles away, a single head turned to one side in surprise. No other being in that entire world could have heard the shriek of the suffering faces in the upper quadrants, but if nothing else, Belasco; the ruler of all of limbo knew what the shrieking meant.

Of all the daemons in limbo, Belasco was one of the most human-looking. His skin was only a deep orange, his eyes were solid gold, and he had two small horns protruding from his forehead, just above his eyes, but in every other respect, he looked perfectly human.' He was no larger or smaller than a typical human, and he had the same number of arms, legs, fingers, and even heads as a human. In fact, his resemblance to a human being had led many of his enemies to underestimate him in the past, and that, of course, had caused him a great deal of trouble during his rise to power, because larger, stronger-looking daemons had hardly ever known enough to fear him. It was only more recently that the daemons had come to know his name and face as one that should be feared, and that made Belasco the closest thing to a real leader that Limbo had.

Of course, to really feel secure in his position of power, Belasco had needed to acquire a few supernatural senses. Sensitive hearing was only one of those. As soon as he realized that someone new had arrived in his domain by the same entryway that had been used last time, Belasco spared a single thought to wonder who it might be, and that thought had left his mind, traveling with the speed that only thoughts can, to the location of the new arrivals. Quickly the thought grazed across their own consciousness, and returned with some basic information about them; names, abilities and especially motivations. However, Belasco found much of the new information very confusing.

Naturally, Belasco had encountered all kinds of beings before, with all kinds of strange names. It was relatively normal to find creatures with names like Piotr, or Logan, or Scott Summers suddenly appearing in his realm; even with abilities beyond those normally attributed to mortals, such as energy projection, rapid healing, and supernatural strength. What puzzled Belasco had more to do with their motivations. One of them; Piotr was the brother of the previous arrival; Illyana Rasputin, but Belasco wasn't sure what that had to do with anything. Apparently, it was the reason they'd come, but he simply couldn't determine why something as trivial as a common parent between two individuals would compel a group of people to leave their home world, and invade enemy territory. It was most confusing. In the end, Belasco decided to chock it up to the fact that humans frequently made silly, immature choices, and not even bother trying to figure them out anymore after that. It was a waste of time and thoughts. Mortals were still mortals, after all, and those "X-men," as they thought of one another, couldn't possibly survive for very long in Limbo. Belasco was quite confident that he didn't need to concern himself with trying to kill them. It was the natural tendency of his people to take care of small issues like that on their own.

* * *

The moment the shrieking had started up, both Logan and Kurt had lost nearly all of their focus. Of course, it was hard for the others to concentrate too, but the high-pitched, incessant wailing had been particularly painful for the two of them, given how sensitive their ears were. Kurt had fallen to the floor of the cavern when the shrieking started, and Logan had needed to use every ounce of his discipline to keep from trying to dig into the walls with his claws. At last, the shrieking died down, and the unnatural faces closed their eyes and mouths, to return to their previous expressions, looking for all the world like ordinary human heads, except still protruding from the walls.

Fortunately, as soon as the screaming had started, Scott and Jubilation had jumped down off Piotr's shoulders, so they hadn't gotten hurt when Piotr had moved on impulse to cover his ears a second later. In fact, they'd made similar motions, as had Bobby and Ororo, though Ororo had managed to remain floating in mid-air, through the whole, disruptive cacophony.

At last, when the noise faded completely, Logan muttered, "K. New rule. No digging."

"Professor?" Scott asked aloud, while thinking the word clearly in his mind, "You still with us?"

He received, unfortunately, no reply.

"Professor?" Scott asked again.

"Give it up." Logan advised him, "If the Prof could check on us in here, he would've called us first."

"But Professor Xavier can communicate with anyone on planet Earth." Ororo objected.

"What does that tell you about where we are now?" Kurt asked grimly, scampering back into an upright position, "So far, we have seen man-eating grass, and faces embedded in walls, with only the function, it seems, of crying out in suffering, and we have only been in this one chamber of this place. Does any of this seem earthly?"

"Shaddup and don't panic." Logan muttered, "Give me a minute to think."

"If Illyana was ever here, there is no trace." Piotr said, uncovering his ears, and looking around. The room they were in seemed to basically be a cave with one open tunnel leading into a larger chamber outside.

"I don't like anything about this place." Ororo muttered.

"If they do that again, can I bomb them?" Jubilation asked, examining one of the faces on the walls more carefully.

"I said shaddup!" Logan exclaimed angrily with a slight snarl under his spoken words, that sounded roughly like the growl of a bobcat. The other X-men were flabbergasted. It was rare that Logan took that tone with anyone, and especially with them. Something was really wrong. Even Logan was obviously unsettled. They all decided, then and there, to just listen to what he had to say for a moment.

"Here's what we're gonna do..." Logan said after thinking for a few moments, "Ignore the ground, ignore the faces... Hell, if they start screamin' again, ignore that too. Ignore everything that ain't tryin' to kill us. Just pay attention when I talk to ya, and do what I say. We'll get outta this..."

For a moment, Logan closed both eyes, and when he opened them again, he seemed very sad.

"When you kids first showed up at the Institute," Logan said aloud to them, "Chuck's first words to me were that I shouldn't tell you my views on life. Even after all that's happened, I never really did, but now... considering... It looks like you might have to know."

Most of the students had come to trust Logan over the course of the last several months, but even so, hearing him say those words made them feel very worried. It seemed that Logan was about to teach them something truly terrifying, and they weren't sure what to say to that.

"My mutant powers are pretty hard to work with some of the time." Logan confessed at last, "I got enhanced senses of smell, hearing and night vision. I got claws and unbreakable bones, and I can heal from huge injuries, but there's somethin' else I got that I ain't so proud of. It's the other side of my powers; animal instincts. Part of me wants to think like a wolf, or a lion all the time, and just depend on the law of the jungle; survival of the fittest and all that. It's a simple code, and it makes life simple; either ya win, or ya lose..."

Ororo swallowed when Logan said that, but he wasn't quite finished.

"There's one thing about that law that gets left out of most werewolf movies, though." Logan noted, "Truth is, both wolves and lions tend to travel in packs, to protect each other. Some wolf packs ain't even any bigger than the team we got here, and I can deal with that."

Bobby grinned when Logan said that, although no one else was grinning.

"I've got a mind like everybody else." Logan explained, "I can think for myself, so I can sit on them instincts if I have to, but I've been to war more'n once, and in my experience, nothin' pulls a guy and his team through like good instincts and teamwork. If this place here is as big a danger zone as I think it is, we're gonna need to think like a wolfpack, and that means hittin' hard, and all together when we have to hit, and sticking together and protecting each other's backs when we're under fire. There ain't no room for cowards in war. That's what my instincts tell me."

For several seconds, no one said a thing, but at last, Ororo spoke.

"That's horrible."

"Yeah." Logan replied, "Yeah, it is."

There was another long pause, in which no one spoke, but at last, it was Bobby who spoke up.

"I don't think anybody's gonna jump ship, sir. I mean, we all jumped into that little hole to Hell because we're all in this together, right? For me, nothing's changed. How about you guys?"

No one responded to the question vocally, but Bobby got quite a few nods, and that drew a grin, in turn, from Logan.

"In that case, let's find the little sister and..." Logan paused for a moment as he said that, however, letting the sentence die where it was, because he'd just realized something that hadn't occurred to him before.

"Peter..." Logan said, turning back to face Piotr, even as he flippantly mispronounced his Russian name, "You never said a word about what your sister looked like."

It was the first time in quite a while that Piotr had truly looked ashamed, but he recovered quickly, and offered what information he could.

"When I last saw Illyana, she had short, blond hair, and bright blue eyes, that shone with wonder whenever she looked at me. However, she has been missing for quite some time, and whether she is alive or not, her appearance may have changed in that time."

Logan just nodded, and then turned to look across the cavern to the tunnel out.

"Scent's cold," Logan remarked, "but at least it's obvious which way she went. Lead the way Peter."

Piotr could tell that Logan was starting to dislike him somewhat, and for just a moment, it made a difference to him. So close on the trail of his last family member, Piotr found that his obsession over that trail was fading, and sure enough, his sanity and presence-of-mind were returning to their normal state. The problem was just how easy it had become to notice and worry about how his more recent friends felt about him. In spite of all that his friends had said to the contrary, Piotr could tell that he would be guilty if they died in that cavern. Going there had been imprudent, and it was his fault. What better reason, he thought, could there be for finding Illyana and getting back to their own world?

Increasing his own density to transform his body into a strong, metallic substance, Piotr took the lead, heading down the dark tunnel before him. It twisted and turned, this way and that for quite some distance, leading the group on for what felt like miles before it opened up into a much larger chamber, become a mere ledge on the edge of a cylinder-shaped room.

The room was about a hundred yards across, although the walkways and tunnels along the edges of it were hardly ever more than three yards wide. The center of the room was like an enormous, vertical tunnel, traveling upward into a blue haze, and downward into a dark infinity, and along the walls, periodically, were walkways without railings, and tunnels without lights, which from a distance, looked like ridges in the room's walls. It looked almost like the remnants of some giant beast that had tunneled through the ground long ago, except that it was all clearly intended to be maze-like, which indicated that it had been designed by some intelligent being, whether they were human or not.

"'Ro." Logan muttered. It took Ororo a few seconds to realize that he was talking to her, but when she did realize, she floated closer to his position.

"Listen real careful." Logan warned her, "I want you to head down to the bottom of this pit, and then come back up and whisper to me what you found. Don't try to shout to me, or you might just bring this whole place down on top of us, okay?"

Ororo nodded once, then flipped over in mid-air, and plunged downward into the seemingly-endless pit in the room's center. A few moments later, however, there was a sharp scream from below, and Logan immediately motioned for everyone to get back into the tunnel they'd emerged from. As it turned out, they were just in time, as an enormous wind, like a massive tornado sprung up from the center of the vertical pit, drawing about five hundred dark, evil-looking shapes up into the higher sections of the column-room, just seconds before Ororo shot back upward, out of the pit, and flew directly into the tunnel where Logan and the others were hiding.

"Sorry." she whispered quickly. "I'm very sorry. Sorry."

Logan, however, knew what was coming next, and quickly motioned for Ororo to get back, as all six of his claws popped out. The daemon-like creatures were recovering from the wind gust that Ororo had created, and were spinning around in mid-air; preparing for another attack.

As the daemons dove at the X-men all at once, Logan swatted aside one with his claws, putting deep gashes in its body, as it collided with one of the hard, stone walls. The next daemon bit Logan hard in the shoulder, but he'd felt a lot worse, and it was soon a slimy mess in one of Piotr's large, metal fists. Just a moment later, Scott and Jubilation had found openings, and had started firing from behind the protective bodies of their teammate and teacher. Still, the daemons kept coming at them, squeezing in between the blasts and explosions as best they could, to get at their prey, until Bobby started "icing up" again. It was the term he would later use to describe his ability to form and remove a protective armor made of ice all over his body, and as soon as he brought it up, the other students started to move away from him. No one could be sure what he was going to do next. Quickly, Robert Drake waved his icy hands through the air, and a rain of razor-sharp icicles came down on the daemons from above, skewering several of them, and eventually driving them all back in fear. They seemed to have had enough of a fight for one day.

The X-men didn't move for several seconds after the small, winged daemons left. They'd been just what one expected daemons to be; cruel-looking and vicious, with fangs, horns, and claws all over. None of the X-men felt safe after having been so brutally attacked in that manner.

Still, after taking about thirty seconds to wait for his fresh bites and scrapes to heal themselves, Logan turned to look at Ororo, and asked "See anything down there, Ro?"

"N... Not much." Ororo replied in a scared mutter, "After a while, the pit turns to one side, and slicks up with moisture, like some kind of slide, but those daemons were all over that section."

"Just waiting to prey one anyone who might slip and fall into their nest." Logan noted aloud, "Ten bucks says Illyana either wound up at the bottom of that slide, or inside a bunch of those monsters."

Piotr was just starting to feel a little ill as he looked down into the deep, black pit beneath them, and listened to what Logan had said just a moment before, probably because the older man had never really cared about hurting other people's feelings, almost like a drill sergeant.

"Then you're saying we need to get down there." Kurt replied, looking even more worried.

"Well, yeah, but getting down's not the problem." Logan said, looking over the edge again, "Peter and me could just fall the distance, you can climb walls, and I'm betting Bobby would survive somehow, which just leaves Scott and Jubes to be lowered in by controlled wind funnels. Ro's had a lot of experience with that during these last few danger room sessions. She can handle it, even if we have to go one at a time. The real problem is, how are we gonna get back up here? Kurt, you and me could probably get back up, and Ro could get back up no problem. I'll bet even Bobby could figure something out, but... Ro doesn't have enough experience to fly four people around at once with her winds. We could get stuck down there real easy, or at least lost; either way, it wouldn't make any difference whether we find the kid or not."

"Besides, there's no proof she fell down there anyway." Scott said, but Logan shook his head.

"I'm convinced." he said, "You see that mark on the edge over there?"

Scott took a good look at the mark that Logan had pointed out to him, and sure enough, it looked like some dirt had been dislodged near the edge of the path. One of the sharp-edged rocks sticking out of the wall near the crumbled dirt bore a stain along one side, that looked dark brownish-red, and very, very old. After letting the students study the evidence for a moment, Logan pointed over to the bodies of the daemons that he and Piotr had killed a moment before, and it was quite plain that the dark green slime oozing from their remains was different from human blood.

"I see dried, human blood in the daemon world, right next to a crumbled pathway, and to me that says that the little, curious girl comes through here, looks over the edge, and loses her balance when the path starts to crumble. She cuts herself on a rock on the way down, and falls into the pit with debris all around her. Yeah. She went this way. No question in my mind."

"I am so close to her..." Piotr muttered aloud, "She has been this way..."

After peering over the edge for a few moments himself, Piotr turned to face the other X-men, and came to a decision.

"My friends, I must fall to the bottom of this pit. Neither the fall, nor the daemons that we have just encountered will be able to hurt me, and I cannot leave without knowing what has happened to my sister."

"Hate this." Logan muttered after just a moment, "It all smells wrong. Still..."

"The way that you feel about your sister..." Kurt said after only a moment, "If you fell into that pit, and we never knew what had happened to you, do you think we would be able to just live with that? Whether or not it is safe or easy, you are our friend, Piotr. We will not forsake you, in this place or any other."

The sentiment seemed to generally be universal among the X-men. They'd already been through so much together, that the idea of abandoning any one of them just because it was safer for the others was totally ridiculous to them all. They were together. They were a team.

Soon, Bobby Drake leapt right out from the ledge, towards the middle of the room, seeming to fire ice from his very fingertips. Just as his icy powers took effect, the group could see what he'd been up to all along. A large, spiraling slide had formed along the edges of the room, made of ice, complete with rails on the sides and everything. He'd already used it to slide down to the very bottom of the pit. All that remained was for the others to follow.

Jubilation, Scott, Kurt, and Logan all followed, eager to escape the trouble and pain of trying to climb or fall down that distance. At last, however, Piotr transformed and, true to his word, leapt into the pit on his own, followed at a safe distance by Ororo. When Ororo got to the bottom of the pit again, and reached the slick, stone slide, she could see that large holes had been blasted in the surrounding rock, leaving behind the body parts of many dead daemons, but fortunately, none remained alive.

Ororo didn't dare touch the slide itself, regardless of the fact that all of the others seemed to have descended by that route. She sped through the air, moving quickly and noiselessly down the tunnel covering the long, stone slide, and sure enough, she was starting to see both the paths in the slick goo where her friends had recently slid down, and the eventual exit of the slide at the very end, leading to a fiery red glow just outside.

As soon as Ororo emerged from the long slide just a few moments later, she could see that her friends were still alright. The floor was no more than a couple yards down from the base of the slide, and after his own initial fall, Bobby had fashioned another ice slide to ease the descent of his friends to the floor. Ororo descended quickly, until she was about at eye level with her friends, although as usual, she never quite touched down when she got to ground level.

Sure enough, the place the X-men had found themselves in was several times more forbidding than any place they'd been in before. It seemed to be some kind of large cavern with lava streams running right by the stone floors on the left, and hot springs about a dozen yards to the right. It was a worrying place, and the heat and eerie glow of the lava would easily have terrified a young girl, even if she'd known what it was.

"Alright." Logan muttered upon seeing that Ororo had joined them, "That's everybody."

For a moment, Logan looked around for evidence of what had happened to Illyana after reaching the stone platform they were on, but as he sniffed the air, he noticed something unpleasant, and his head whipped around to the left in alarm.

"What happened to her after she reached this point?" Piotr asked, "What else happened to my sister?"

"Shh... Shaddup." Logan said again, though with less of an aggravated edge to his warning, "Somebody's here."

"Illyana?" Piotr asked as quietly as he could.

"Don't smell like no kinda human I ever met." Logan replied, "There's one with... No... Make that three... five... Yeah. Five of 'em."

"Six," came a voice from the shadows behind them, "but one's got the power to disguise his own scent."

Quickly, the whole group spun around to face the new arrival, but he was just standing there, smiling with his arms folded, and leaning against the stone wall right behind them.

He was a daemon, of course, but he looked surprisingly human, with only an extra eye in the center of his forehead, and an extra arm on each side to alert the X-men to the fact that he hadn't been a simple human being. He might easily have passed for a mutant, if not for his clear malevolence.

"Who are you?" Scott demanded to know.

"Why does that matter?" the daemon asked.

"Whadda you want?" Logan asked, at which point the daemon smiled.

"Same as everybody, I guess." the daemon said, "Survival. This here's a mighty nice spot for a daemon. Water... Warmth... Only a few lower-class harpies to worry about every so often. It ain't a bad spot to live, and the Baras Gang... We don't like when outsiders try to muscle in on our turf. No, sir. That don't make us the least bit happy."

Just then, there was a sound from nearby; off to the right, near the hot springs. It sounded like an enormous saw, grinding against solid stone as a series of large crashing noises impacted with the ground. In short, it was the sound of approaching daemons. Logan's muscles tensed up. He had to hope and pray that the training with the X-men had been enough, because there was no way he could protect the students from six enemies at once.

"Shoulda stayed wherever you were I guess." the humanoid daemon said, "The Baras Gang... We tend to get pretty rough when someone gets on our nerves..."

* * *

To be continued...


	12. X Institute 12: Corruption

The Xavier Institute Neo

Issue 12

"Corruption"

* * *

Kurt had begun muttering something under his breath as the sounds of the new arrivals had grown louder. They had, it seemed, been called to that location by their comrade, and it definitely sounded like each was a different size and shape. The chamber shook with the sound of their approach. In only a moment, they were emerging from the tunnels near the hot spring; one the shape of a spider, but the side of a horse, one a sixteen-foot monster with the arms and torso of a man, and the head and legs of an ox, one a massive, twenty-foot beast with large, sharp points protruding from every part of its body, except where circular, disc-like shapes were attached to its claws, and seemed to spin like saw blades, cutting things with their sharp edges. The last two daemons of the group looked very human; one a man and one a woman, except that the woman bore a great deal of resemblance to Kurt, but with a deep red skin, instead of dark blue, and the man had sharp-looking thorns growing out of his shoulders, and strange, green, pod-like appendages protruding from his hips.

"There's seven." the largest of the daemons said in a voice that seemed to come from the vibrations of its sharp points, "Just over one apiece."

The three-eyed daemon looked annoyed, but shrugged his shoulders quickly, and turning to Logan, spoke again.

"Okay. New plan. My buddies in the Baras Gang want to have a little fun, and they probably want to show off a little too, so how's about we fight you one on one?"

"How can we be sure you won't break your word about that?" Scott asked, but Logan quickly held one hand up to silence him.

"I expect you'll go back on that, and anything else if it serves your purposes." Logan said to the three-eyed daemon.

"I expect you'll do the same." the daemon replied.

"If you can play honorless, so can we, bub." Logan replied, "Just so's you don't feel cheated."

"Sure thing." the daemon remarked, then snapped his fingers, causing all of the other daemons to form a half circle around the platform that the X-men were standing on, as if cordoning off that one section of the daemon world. Taking the hint, the X-men quickly stepped outside the half circle to form a half circle of their own. It was a game they'd never played before, but they were picking it up quickly.

The first to step into the center of the circle that the two groups had outlined was the female daemon with the red skin. No discussion was needed. Kurt stepped forth.

"I take it there ain't no rules for fights like this." Logan confirmed with the apparent leader of the daemons.

"If there's rules, you feel free to break 'em." the Baras gang's leader replied, "I know I would."

As Logan had intended, Kurt's sensitive ears had picked up the gang leader's words, and he'd started drawing plans as he continued to mutter under his breath. The girl daemon looked Kurt up and down in some worry, noticing his muttering, and the sword he had strapped to his back, but at last, the gang leader's foot came down on the ground with a sharp clap, and it seemed that it was time for the fight to begin.

"What is the nature of that incantation?" the girl daemon asked as Kurt continued to mutter under his breath, "I would much rather understand your magic before I kill you."

Kurt continued to mutter for a few seconds, then stopped, looking a little confused. At last, he spoke with sadness all over his face.

"It is not magic, daemon." he said, "I am praying."

"Why are you doing that?" the daemon asked, "In Limbo, prayers are meaningless."

"On Earth, prayers are often seen as having no meaning as well." Kurt replied, "There is a book that my people hold sacred, which says that Christ sent us to preach the gospel; not with the wisdom of human eloquence, so that the cross of Christ might not be emptied of its meaning. The message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to those being saved, it is the power of God."

"And who, exactly, is being saved?" the daemon asked, "If you think that anyone is being saved, you haven't been in Limbo long enough."

"Every intelligent being has the chance to be saved." Kurt replied, "All they have to do is accept that salvation; learn love for peace and justice, then pay heed and respect to the word of God, and try to walk in his footsteps. Jesus himself was cast into Hell shortly after his death, where he proved that even Hell was less powerful than he. He showed the forces of evil that they were no match for good. Now, I will walk in his footsteps, stepping forward to stand on behalf of the God in whom I have faith, and the people whom I love."

"Faith and love have nothing to do with fighting." the daemon replied, "They distract people from what really matters."

"I pity you, daemon." Kurt replied, "To survive in such surroundings is a fate worse than death."

"You cannot afford to pity me!" the girl daemon shouted, rolling forward along the ground and slipping to one side, then raising her hands upward, claws extending from them to strike at Kurt. Kurt, however, was ready for that kind of attack, and whipped his tail around to swat one hand aside, grabbing the other in his own hand. In just a moment, both combatants were flying through the air, away from one another, each landing at the very edge of the circle, near their enemy's team.

"I still pity you," Kurt said, bottomless sadness reflected in his eyes, "but that does not mean that I will relent."

"A cunning trick." the girl daemon said, looking impressed, "You have won the right to know my name. I am Serlos."

"Kurt Wagner," Kurt replied, "though you have done nothing to earn that knowledge."

However, it seemed that Serlos was done trying to understand Kurt. He was, to her, strange, alien and foolish, and of course, he was sport.

In just a moment, Serlos had begun muttering to herself, and Kurt tried to prepare for an attack of some kind, but he still wasn't prepared for what actually happened. In just a moment, the shape of the claws on her hands seemed to change, and Kurt heard a sound like a sharp hiss. He barely even had enough time to teleport behind her once he realized what the hiss signified.

Something inside of Serlos' fingertips had worked a little like a pressurized air gun, firing something long and sharp out from her claws across Kurt's flesh. He'd teleported in time to avoid the worst of it, but he could feel small cuts along his arms and legs. They were painful, of course, and distracting, and Kurt would have to watch out for that attack in the future, but as long as Serlos had committed to killing him, he knew he had to defend himself by whatever means were necessary.

In another puff of smoke, Kurt was directly above Serlos, with his intention being to simply kick her from overhead, and hopefully knock her out, but it seemed that she'd been fighting for her life for quite some time, and saw his shadow appear underneath her almost at once. In an instant, she reacted, her eyes shining with a bright, white light as she looked directly up at Kurt, then there was a brilliant flash, and that was all that Kurt saw.

A fraction of a second later, a solid block of ice came crashing to the ground as Serlos quickly ducked to one side to avoid it. Inside the ice was Kurt Wagner, an expression of horror and shock frozen on his face.

"Can I have the next one too?" the girl daemon asked hopefully, but their leader just shook his head with an expression of disappointment in all three of his eyes.

Logan, however, was also looking disappointed. Not furious, sad or full of grief over the loss of his friend. It took Serlos several seconds too long before she realized that it wasn't Kurt that Logan was disappointed in.

In only a moment more, the blade of a sword was positioned along the side of Serlos' neck.

"You are too arrogant." Kurt said in a voice that sounded just a little too gentle to belong to someone willing to kill, "Surrender, or I will kill you."

"What?" Serlos asked, "What are you jibbering about? This isn't some game. If you will not kill me, I will kill you!"

Serlos' head rotated around one hundred and eighty degrees, and she fired the white beam from her eyes as quickly as she could, but by that point, Kurt was gone again. Serlos cursed. Obviously, when she'd used her ice beam before, Kurt hadn't been frozen as badly as she'd thought. Whatever kind of teleportation ability he'd mastered, he could do it just by thinking about it, which was how he'd escaped from the block of ice, which still contained his outline inside of it, full of dark smoke. That meant that Serlos needed to kill him quickly, which either meant piercing him with her claws, or freezing him, then shattering the ice somehow. The only alternative was to wear him down slowly. Still, Serlos was confident that she could win if Kurt wasn't willing to kill her. That gave her a major advantage.

Quickly, Serlos started firing the white beams from her eyes again, each acting to stop fast-moving molecules in midair. Before long, the entire floor was slick and reflective. It was an environment that she had a lot of experience navigating; slippery, icy surfaces, but her enemy, she thought, wouldn't be prepared for...

Suddenly, there was a sharp noise, like a blast of smoke from a lava vent, and Kurt was in front of her, his sword having been returned to its sheath on his back. Serlos fired the projectiles embedded in her claws again, but not quickly enough. Kurt had vanished again, reappearing behind her. For several more seconds, Serlos and Kurt continued to strike at one another like that, but Kurt's attacks weren't doing enough damage to end the fight, and Serlos couldn't manage to make more than a few superficial cuts against her enemy at any point, before he vanished again in another puff of smoke. However, every so often, Kurt would actually land on the ground for a moment, to try to catch his balance, and whenever that happened, the icy floor beneath the two combatants worked against him. He was able to regain his sense of balance when he did hit the floor, but only by using his mutant power to adhere to the ice, which seemed to be taking a lot out of him as the fight continued. At last, Kurt had begun to get so tired, that he was slowing down in his teleportations, and Serlos' attacks were getting nearer and nearer to the mark. When one finally struck him straight through his left leg, he barely had enough energy to slide away from another strike across the floor.

In just a moment more, Serlos was on top of him with her tail wrapped around his neck, and Kurt was absolutely miserable. He could teleport three more times, and that was it, but he didn't like what he had to do.

Serlos had been right about one thing; Kurt wasn't ready to kill her outright. He'd been willing to kill Professor Xavier, because Kevin McTaggert had been a threat to everyone he knew, but if he and the X-men died there in Limbo, there was little chance that it would impact the rest of humanity. In time, he could probably justify killing just to protect his immediate team, but that wasn't time that he had. Kurt had to use the last of his X-force in the one way that he was sure would net him a victory.

As Serlos raised her claws, pointing them directly at Kurt's head, Kurt Wagner grabbed her by the shoulders, and cursing her silently for forcing him to take such an action, both combatants vanished in a puff of smoke.

When Kurt and Serlos reappeared, Kurt knew that he'd correctly gauged how much power he had left. He'd used enough power for two teleportations, to get both of them to that spot in the caverns, just above the slide, and as the two fell through the air, and Kurt released his grip on the daemon, he looked both truly exhausted and unbearably sad. The sound of the remaining harpies regrouping from their previous battle with the X-men rose up from below them both, as Kurt mouthed the words "Auf Wiedersehen."

Then he was gone, and Serlos found that hundreds of furious, hungry harpies were ascending towards her with their mouths open.

* * *

When Kurt reappeared among his friends a moment later, he looked deeply crestfallen, and the daemon gang leader's eyes opened wide in alarm and fury. Clearly, he knew what had happened, even before the sound of Serlos' final scream reached their location through the open tunnel just above them.

"The hell?" the large, minotaur-like daemon muttered, "Serlos..."

"Plan's changed, boys." the daemon gang leader barked, "This isn't fun anymore. Kill them all!"

"X-men!" Logan exclaimed, "Hit 'em hard and fast!"

* * *

"I don't like this." Belasco muttered as he jotted down another few syllables to his latest-developed incantation. In a flash, three daemons were at his side. One was a blood-red, human-sized daemon covered in sharp claws and horns. He had wings with razor-sharp edges, and a mouth like a mosquito crossed with a baboon. Aside from that, most of his physiology was ape-like. The second daemon was twice the height of a man; well-muscled with a long tail, and purple skin. A large, iguana-like fin traveled up his back, to the top of his head, where it came to its end. His nose was large, and he wore a brown vest, and smoked a thick cigar. The last of the daemons was a woman; about the same height as Belasco, but weighing several times as much. Her waist was very thick and round, but her arms and legs were no less muscular than those of the larger, purple daemon standing next to her. Her skin was very dark, and her hair was long and gray. The three of them were Belasco's closest lieutenants, and each was as strong as a hundred human armies. They were called, in order, N'astirh, Sym and M'ballam, and their only purpose for existing, as far as any of them dared to think, was to make every one of Belasco's wishes come true.

"What's the sweat factory, boss?" Sym asked, shifting the cigar to one side of his mouth, to make it easier to talk.

"I didn't bring it up, because it didn't seem terribly important at the time," Belasco explained, without even bothering to look his most powerful servants in the eye, "but a team of seven individuals have invaded from another reality, emerging in the seventeenth column pit; the one with the harpies."

"That's the Baras Gang's territory, isn't it?" Sym asked, "Why not just let them deal with it?"

"Because" Belasco replied, "the Baras Gang is dead."

"Dead?" M'ballam asked in confusion, though she knew better than to ask her lord if he was sure about that, "The invaders must have exceptional powers."

"Yes." Belasco admitted, "Not exceptional for our realm, but for their own planet of origin, they are most abnormal. I'm somewhat surprised that they were able to destroy the Baras Gang myself, but I'm not going to underestimate them again. I'm fairly certain that with a little work, and much danger, a few of them will even be able to make it here."

"Seventeenth column pit..." N'astirh hissed, "They must be after our other visitor."

"That's correct." Belasco replied, "I can't say why, though. These earthlings are puzzling creatures."

"So what's the move?" Sym asked.

Belasco was silent for several seconds as he contemplated the events that had already occurred, and how best to deal with the seven intruders.

"I'm confident that any one of you could defeat their group, but I'd rather you didn't leave, given the critical stage my latest experiment is at right now. Seal up entryways four and five into my castle, and position yourselves at the first three. If these X-men are all they're cracked up to be, my regular guards will be no match for them. One of you will be needed to truly deal with them."

"Why not just send me to wipe 'em out now?" Sym asked, then quickly followed the question with an explanation, "Not that I mean to question you, boss. I'm just curious about your reasons."

"I know a great deal about the people of planet Earth," Belasco explained, "and while they hardly ever attain great power for themselves, a select few can be devious tacticians. There is a chance that they know more about Limbo's command structure than they're letting on, and if that's so, then sending you, or anyone else out to fight with them might be a mistake. They could, with some hard work, split up and take advantage of your absence from my castle to break in, and I'm not entirely certain how much they would be able to learn once inside this castle's walls. I would much rather they didn't get too close, until I'm certain that I'm ready to confront them."

"Then you have a plan, of course." N'astirh noted.

"Of course." Belasco replied, frowning, "I've been planning for a war with planet Earth for many years. I didn't know that the earthlings would try to take the fight to me, but in a way, it's very much better that they've made that decision. They'll have the opportunity to scream in despair and terror in their last moments, when they see what has become of their precious Illyana. I think that will be a good laugh for us all."

Then, Belasco's smile broadened into a wicked grin, and even his highest-ranking assistants soon found themselves growing so uncomfortable, that by the end of fifteen seconds, they were eager to leave, and do what they'd been told.

* * *

As soon as the leader of the Baras Gang had slid off of Logan's claws, the X-men had begun a mad dash through the tunnels that they'd emerged from. Thanks to the fact that so much daemon blood had been spilled in that place so recently, Illyana's scent was indecipherable, and there weren't any footprints, disturbed earth, or anything else that might have provided a clue as to what had happened to her after landing in that chamber. In the end, their best bet had been to just keep pressing on in the direction that a panicked child would have been most likely to travel.

That route of travel had led them to a large, circular room, surrounded by many doors, each of which had the skull of some unfortunate daemon positioned as a decoration over it, and in between the doors were more pits, each one three feet wide, and as many long. Piotr didn't even need Logan to tell him what had happened to his sister in that chamber.

"She fell." Piotr observed miserably, "She fell into one of these holes in the floor."

"Yeah," Logan replied, examining one hole in particular, which was littered with finger-shaped markings in the dirt around its edges, "but she didn't stay down there, and when she got back up, she headed into this door."

It wasn't a time for smiles or cheers, but if nothing else, the X-men were on the trail again, and soon, that trail would lead them to the very center of Limbo; the very center of the evil...

* * *

Belasco grinned again as he put his pen down. The time had come to move into the final stages of the experiment. For more than one reason, it was fortunate that the X-men had arrived in Limbo. Belasco was already convinced of the loyalty of his "project," but then, there were those who said that humans had great loyalty to their family, and it wasn't as if the project had ever had the chance to kill a human before. If she was going to be a general of Limbo's advance forces, she might as well see what that entailed firsthand.

Belasco blew on the ink once, causing it to dry instantly, then closed the book, got to his feet, and vanished.

* * *

Before entering Limbo, most of the X-men had never really killed before, but when they were left with no other choice; they'd learned how to kill rather quickly. It was a cherished tradition among the inhabitants of Limbo, past and present, so it probably shouldn't have been too surprising.

Logan, however, had killed before. In fact, he'd killed a great many people in his life. He'd been a soldier in more than one major war, and most of the less-major ones, though to him, all wars were the same, and murder was the main part of war.

When the tunnel that the X-men had followed had led them into another daemon gang's territory, Logan's claws had been a blur again, carving the flesh of whatever daemon looked vulnerable to them without hesitation or regret. There'd be time for grief and sorrow when they were all safely back home, if, Logan realized with dread, they ever could get back. They'd already gone a great distance from the harpy slide. In fact, they'd gone miles and miles, through empty caverns, and terrible battles. On average, much of what they encountered in Limbo fit nicely into one of those categories.

The problem was that as good as Logan and the X-men were becoming at defending themselves from the new kinds of supernatural enemies they were running into, there was a downside. Though he knew his enemies were incapable of doing right, Logan felt his animal instincts flaring up whenever he killed one. It was the dark side that he'd told the X-men about not long before; the killer instinct that encouraged the same sort of simple, barbaric lifestyle that seemed to be universally practiced in Limbo. It was like blood lust and corruption in a quick, easy-to-open package, and Logan had never been so afraid of falling into those dark urges, and never being able to get back out.

However, it wasn't just Logan who was noticing that problem. While the desire to hunt and kill others like a beast was always something he'd needed to fight, he was starting to see that at least part of the issue may have been due to the circumstances of his life, because as he and the X-men rushed through Limbo in search of some evidence of the fate of Illyana, Logan could see the killer instinct showing itself in the eyes of the other X-men as well. It wasn't uncontrollable, and it wasn't getting in the way, but the desire was definitely there.

"Maybe just bein' in this kinda situation... havin' to fight for your life... maybe that's all it takes to push most folks over the edge." Logan thought as two more daemons fell away from him in a shower of daemon blood, "Maybe war's where corruption really starts."

Logan dared to look around one last time, as the enemies of the X-men seemed to be collapsing. It was the first time in a while that he'd even really paid much attention to where their group had wound up. They were in the middle of a field of some kind, with mountains and caves off to one side, that they'd apparently just emerged from a few hours before, when the battle had begun. The field itself was green; not with grass, but with the blood of the daemons who'd used that field as a site for battle. It was a grim place, full of the evidence of violence, suffering and death. However, it seemed that there was also a living being there as well. He hadn't been there a moment ago. It was as if he'd just sort of appeared from nowhere like Kurt. He was about average-height in comparison to a human, and he had deep orange skin, shining golden eyes and two small horns on his forehead. He was dressed in a long, red cloak that obscured almost everything about the rest of his body, although one hand occasionally emerged from that cloak, to gesture to the bloodshed around him as he spoke.

"You're half right about war, Logan." the daemon said, looking around, "It is not the cause of blood lust, but it does tend to lead there fairly often. I'm glad to have overcome it."

The other X-men all stopped in their tracks as the daemon spoke. Logan looked stunned and worried as he watched the daemon carefully. Unlike most daemons in Limbo, the new arrival bore some resemblance to classic depictions of Satan, which would have encouraged a more superstitious man to attack him on site. Even Logan felt a chill traveling through him when the being spoke.

"Who're you?" Logan asked, confused, "How'd you know my name?"

"I know everything I need to about Limbo and those who inhabit it." the daemon replied, "You may call me Belasco. I am the lord of this realm."

"Nice place you got here." Logan replied sarcastically, but Belasco seemed to have little experience with sarcasm.

"Hardly." the daemon lord sneered, "Still, it helps to reinforce me in my convictions. I wonder if any of you can really understand the kind of position that I'm in."

"If you rule this realm, you must know what happened to my sister." Piotr said, "Tell me what happened to her."

Belasco turned to look at Piotr for a moment, squinting out of his empty eyes, but at last, he simply muttered, "No, I don't think I'll do that; at least not all at once. Your poor, human heart couldn't take it."

"Monster!" Piotr exclaimed furiously, "What did you do to my sister?"

Then, at once, Piotr had transformed, his skin hardening and his body growing, until he was a sixteen-foot giant made of metal, charging Belasco as fast as he could with long, crashing steps. However, just as Piotr got within a few feet of his enemy, Belasco seemed to dash forward with inhuman speed, rushing in between Piotr's legs, and slamming his own fists against them from behind. Piotr felt his metal flesh collapsing in on itself under the blows of his enemy. He had to return to his normal shape if he wanted to survive. There was no other way.

Soon, Piotr was sitting on the ground, not far away from Belasco; breathing hard as he struggled to regain some part of his spent X-force. Belasco didn't seem to have been the least bit bothered by the short exchange, however. In fact, he was displaying a very wicked-looking grin, that made Piotr feel truly afraid.

"Believe me, human." Belasco said as he stood over Piotr, "You wouldn't want to know what has become of your sister."

"I cannot live without knowing." Piotr replied, still furiously.

"Fair enough." Belasco said, his wicked grin remaining unaffected, "There are a few things that I can tell you, then. First, that Limbo is a very different kind of universe from your own. There is less mass in Limbo than in your own universe, and so, for reasons which your best scientists would be hard-pressed to understand, the passage of time is different here. For every three hours you spend in Limbo, only one passes in your own world."

"The second thing that I will tell you is that your sister is still alive." Belasco continued, "However... I fear that for you to discover any more would merely bring you misery. That is why I urged you to turn back; merely to be courteous."

"A daemon like yourself must want me to be miserable." Piotr replied defiantly, "Take me to my sister."

"Yes." Belasco replied, his smile broadening more and more every second, "I do want you to be miserable. I want you all to suffer, and not just because you're invaders into my realm. You see, suffering is the byword of Limbo. As its ruler, I can claim to know more about suffering than any living daemon, and I have found that suffering is the source of all corruption. No matter how strong the will of a living being to cling to extraneous things like love and hope, suffering can beat it out of them, if it's repeated and intense enough. Suffering breeds fear, and in time, fury. Fury breeds more suffering and death, just as you see here, but every so often, one person will commit to rise above the suffering and master it, just as I did. When that person recognizes that power alone matters, and accumulates great power for themselves, they can become a mighty leader in Limbo. I once thought that only daemons had that killer instinct; that will to kill for survival and power, but now I'm convinced that humans have it as well, and it's just as easy to bring out in them. If I'm really lucky, one of you may even survive, and become a general among my armies."

"Armies...?" Logan asked, looking a little worried at last, "You've got armies? All these daemons fighting amongst 'emselves, and you've got armies?"

"My armies number in the billions." Belasco replied with a smile, "Each soldier is a veteran of more than fifteen battles among these lower-class scum, who's come to accept that living in my service is the only true path to power in Limbo. Out of every few hundred daemons, one true soldier is born, but still, they're a countless horde, and easily-managed."

"You only need armies if you're planning on going to war." Scott observed aloud.

"Quite true." Belasco replied with a grin, "You see, for quite some time, there have been barriers around our universe, preventing us from branching out into other realities, but a short time ago, I discovered something wonderful; something that could enable the daemons of Limbo to travel out, and invade other worlds like your own; teach them the importance of suffering and the pursuit of power. Because of that, I used my magic to create five gemstones, in order to retrieve that item. I admit, I was very amused when I discovered what that item was. I hope you will be too. It'll make you much easier to sympathize with."

"Will you lead me to my sister?" Piotr demanded to know.

For a moment, Belasco just looked disappointed, and shook his head sadly, but at last, he said, "I've warned you that seeing your sister will bring you only misery and suffering, but since you've chosen not to heed my warnings, it would give me great pleasure to show you the deepest horrors of this daemon realm. I'm going home to my castle, but if you truly want to suffer so badly, follow the signs. They will lead you to my home; my Castle of Despair. In that place, you will discover the truth about all of this, whether you can cope with that truth or not."

Then, Belasco was gone again, and in just a moment more, a bright light flashed in the distance across the field, and it kept flashing every five seconds or so. After about fifteen seconds spent wondering what to do, Piotr started off in pursuit of the light, and as little as he liked the situation, Logan knew that he and the other X-men had to follow. Concerns about how any of them would get back to Earth had been shoved to one side. They'd been wandering through Limbo for more than a day already, and it looked as if they were already badly lost.

* * *

As the X-men wandered through Limbo, they began encountering daemons less and less frequently after that, and those they did encounter had clearly been sent after them on purpose. Three battles with large, powerful daemons began as their journey continued, and three ended with only minor injuries suffered among the X-men, easily treated with makeshift bandages made of cloth, that Logan severed from their outfits with his claws. In all the time they traveled and fought, they never saw Belasco, although they did occasionally hear his voice, seeming to come from all around them, pointing them on in the "right direction," almost as if taunting them.

At last, as the third battle had come to an end, Belasco's voice echoed around the X-men once more. He sounded amused as he spoke, although the things he said were the furthest thing from amusing, for any sensible person.

"I found that last battle particularly interesting. The way Ororo and Bobby used their wind and ice powers to twist that green daemon's torso all the way around... Most illuminating."

"We did what we had to do to stop them." Bobby exclaimed angrily as his icy armor melted away again, into the air.

"Yes, you did." Belasco replied, "You stopped them in the most final sense of the word. Maybe that's the only real ingredient in what you call evil; the desire to defend... Hmm... An interesting thought."

"Then again," Belasco continued, "maybe I was right, and suffering really is the source of all corruption. I sort of hope that's true. Suffering is so much easier to control than people's desires."

Suddenly, a sharp, stabbing pain seized Scott Summers inside his chest, growing worse and worse with every second. He screamed, and collapsed almost at once under the inhuman agony that he was experiencing; writhing and screaming as it grew worse. The other X-men quickly gathered around him as Logan tried to discover what was wrong with him, but there was nothing wrong with him at all; no physical wound that could be bandaged or studied. He was just in pain; all at once, and over that pain came the voice of Belasco again.

"Do you see what I mean? It's the easiest thing in the world."

"Stop... it!" Scott exclaimed, looking directly upward into the sky, and removing his glasses. For several seconds, bright red beams shot upward into the sky from his eyes with such massive, irresistible force, that everyone around him was driven back, and at last, when the pain diminished, then faded completely, and Scott put his glasses back on, he found that he was able to think much more clearly, and realized just how badly he'd played into Belasco's hands.

"That's what I'm talking about." Belasco said from all around them, "I didn't even have to tell you that I wanted you to react violently. I just applied a bit of suffering, and the rest you did on your own. I wonder what you expected your little display to accomplish. It might have increased the pain, or your beams might have drawn the attention of malicious daemons for miles... Could it be that people simply have no freedom to choose, when pain is involved? Could it be that people exposed to sufficient suffering are really more puppets than men? I have to say, I hope that's true. It will ease the administrative burden on me when Limbo invades the planet Earth."

Scott didn't dare to say another word, as Belasco formed his theories aloud, but new thoughts were brewing in his mind. He'd seen what Belasco meant, and he understood the weakness it had created in himself. If Belasco had had some means of harnessing Scott's mutant power, his impulsive action could have had far more terrible consequences. It was, Scott realized, a weakness that he'd reacted so quickly and violently. It was a weakness in his emotional stability, and a weakness, more importantly, in his self control. He needed to find some way to overcome it.

"Of course, I already have a lot of evidence to convince me that humans behave no differently from daemons when they're exposed to intense suffering." Belasco explained, "I'm just rambling on a bit. You probably don't even care about the nature of corruption just yet..."

Only Kurt and Logan heard the slight, ironic tone that Belasco had attached to that last sentence, and only Logan dared to guess at what that tone implied. Whoever or whatever Belasco was, it was clear that he had great power over Limbo, and even over the X-men themselves, which meant that trying to follow him was at best, a dangerous game. There was the very real possibility that Belasco was too powerful to be defeated by them, and that he was merely torturing them intentionally for some reason; perhaps simply for a perverse kind of pleasure.

However, his words to them about the nature of corruption were haunting. His own understanding of the link between suffering and corruption seemed mostly accurate where the daemons of Limbo were concerned. What worried Logan was the fact that Belasco had even bothered to bring the subject up, particularly after assuring Piotr that Illyana was still alive. For a moment, a conclusion zipped across Logan's mind, but it was such a foul-tasting thought, that even he quickly shoved it aside. He would just have to hope that Belasco's tirades weren't leading the X-men where Logan thought they were.

After making his point about corruption, Belasco fell silent for hours. From time to time, engravings would form in the walls around the X-men, describing the functions of various parts of Limbo; how some areas functioned as proving-grounds for promising young daemons, while others were simple living-spaces, and still others true storehouses of secrets, and powers that millions of daemons had perished trying to master.

At last, the X-men reached a spot where another enormous pit seemed to stretch downward into infinity. The pit, however, was miles across, and suspended in its center, by seemingly no force at all, was an enormous castle, to which a series of rickety, wooden bridges seemed to lead. Even Bobby had it figured out at once; that was the Castle of Despair.

However, the castle, the pit, and the bridges weren't the only sight to be seen in that place. Belasco's instructions had led the X-men to a wooden bridge, tied to large, stone spikes, protruding from the ground, each twice the height of a man, and on either side of the bridge was an enormous circle that seemed to be painted on the ground, and looked thoroughly unwholesome.

The circle on the left of the bridge was painted bright green, and the one on the right was more of a magenta color, but each bore, among other occult-looking symbols, the appearance of a pentagram inside them. It was a worrying sight, and Logan noticed something else as the students looked at the castle. In the two stone spikes, there were cuts, as if made by machines. The cut made in the left spike was a simple, but rather large gash, while the one in the spike on the right was perfectly circular. It was as if something ring-shaped, and something sharp had been forcibly removed from the stone at some point.

"This is the gateway to my castle." Belasco said, "No one gets in unless they've proven themselves. You see, the gulf in power between the daemons outside my castle, and those inside is so great, that an advantage was needed in order for them to bridge it. They needed the chance to improve themselves quickly. That's why I created the circles of the test at each of these bridges. Daemons who wish to rise beyond the rank and file step forth, and risk their very lives in these circles. Only the most powerful survive, and are granted the gifts of the Lord of Limbo. Any of the gifts have the power to multiply its user's ability several fold, and no more than one is required to enter my castle, but it is rare that daemons will survive the challenge. Less than one in a thousand emerge from even a single challenge alive. However, recently, one pathetic creature emerged from both of the testing circles you see before you, barely clinging to life. Yet, when this creature had recovered, it found that it had earned the power of both of the items that were once here. Using that power, it was able to enter the castle, but soon found that even despite all that it had overcome, and all the risks it had taken, its power was not enough to overcome Limbo's Lord. I wonder if you will progress as far into my castle, without the benefit of the weapons that once resided here."

It was a cruel taunt, and it was terrifying, in some ways, because it forced Piotr to remember his own failure against Belasco a short time before. He knew for certain that his strength wasn't enough, and yet... and yet he couldn't turn back. Whether or not he survived, Piotr needed to know the truth.

* * *

The trip across the bridge itself, fortunately, proved to be quick and painless, and soon the castle had risen up before the X-men. They could hear the sounds of daemons moving back and forth inside the castle's inner walls as they got closer, and as always in Limbo, they also heard the sounds of suffering. Whatever was going on in that castle, it couldn't be good. The entire thing stank, to Kurt, of torture, murder, sacrifice, and sorcery of the darkest and most vile kinds, and if he could sense it so easily, he had to wonder what Logan, with his powerful sense of smell, had detected.

Of course, as usual, Logan seemed to be hiding his feelings, as well as just how much he knew. Under less-stressful circumstances, Kurt might have found that irritating, but then, Logan had a hard job. As the unofficial field commander of the X-men, he had to make sure they could all work together as a team without losing control or hope, and that job must have been especially taxing since the team had entered Limbo, which seemed very much designed to cause panic and hopelessness.

Logan sniffed the air a couple times, then looked back and forth along the castle walls. There seemed to be a number of entrances to the castle; enormous gates measuring something like fifty feet high, and as many wide, but the gate right across from the bridge they'd just crossed was closed, and covered by a series of large, metal grates.

"Should I attempt to break in?" Piotr asked.

"Nah. Not yet." Logan replied, "There's other ways in. Let's try them first."

Piotr just nodded once, as Logan led the group around the castle to the left, towards the next entrance in that direction.

The X-men had to keep moving for several minutes before reaching the next entryway along the castle's outer walls, and that one, as it turned out, was open, but it was being guarded by two large daemons; one with three feet, and the other with ugly-looking antennae on its head. Each started firing bolts of electricity at the X-men from their hands as soon as they were close enough, but Ororo reacted quickly, calling up a powerful gust of wind, to slam each of them against the nearest wall. In just a second more, Scott and Jubilation had struck, and the miniature battle was over.

However, as it turned out, that wasn't the only battle that the X-men would need to fight that day.

"Not bad." said a voice from within the shadows, just inside the gate, "I can see how you guys could be a problem for the lower-class gangs..."

As he spoke, the owner of the voice stepped forth from the shadows. It was the purple-skinned daemon known throughout Limbo as Sym, and the thick cigar still gleamed bright red on one end, as it rested in his mouth.

"Who the hell are you supposed to be?" Jubilation asked at once. The question was impulsive, but Limbo daemons tended to react well to questioning of that nature.

"Call me Sym." the large daemon said, "I run the lower floors of this here place."

"I'm bettin' you still answer to Belasco, though." Logan noted.

"He's the boss." Sym replied, "That goes without saying. Still, out of all the daemons in Belasco's service, I'm the toughest one."

"So you are second in command." Piotr said, but Sym just scowled when he heard that question. Sym's position in the command structure of Limbo was obviously something he preferred to avoid discussing.

"I hope you ain't gonna try to stop us." Logan said, "We tore through just about everybody we've come across so far. I don't think you wanna be on that list."

"Nah," Sym replied, "I ain't here to stop you per se. See, the boss has a surprise for you, and for somebody else too, and he wants me to blindfold the bunch of you, and take you into the war room, fer a little reunion"

"That's insane!" Scott exclaimed, "Do you honestly think we're going to submit to being blindfolded and led around by a daemon serving someone who plans to attack Earth?"

"Nope." Sym replied, "I suspect I'll have to force you. Damn shame, really. Things were going so well today, too."

Just like that, Sym started moving forward, towards the X-men with a big frown on his face. Of course, the X-men knew they were in for another fight, and Piotr and Logan lead to charge.

Logan got there first, slashing out with his claws, but Sym's skin was just too tough. The adamantium alloy that made up Logan's claws and skeleton was definitely stronger, but he just wasn't powerful enough to force it through Sym's flesh. Piotr had advanced in just a moment, and struck out with both fists at once in a double-handed blow, but Sym seemed to barely feel it, and swatted both X-men aside. In just a moment, Scott had opened fire with his optic blasts, driving the large daemon back through the gate he'd emerged from just moments before. Still, since entering Limbo, Scott had seen more than one daemon get back up after taking his optic blasts. He wasn't about to assume that Sym was dead.

Sure enough, just a moment later, the group heard the sound of the large daemon getting back to his feet.

"Sorry 'bout that." he said, "S'been a while since I had to fight anybody serious. I'm getting outta practice. Just a minnit, while I warm up."

However, when Sym said that, something changed. It was as if a mild trembling had begun in the ground under their feet. Sym was using some kind of strange power. The only question was what that power would do.

With the next step that Sym took, they all started to understand. It sounded like the crash of thunder.

Quickly, Sym had charged forward again, his every footstep cracking the stone underneath him as he moved, and when Scott fired again, he took the blast head-on, and yet, it didn't seem to be effecting him at all.

Quickly, Bobby started forming ice around Sym's arms and legs, as Jubilation fired an implosion bomb in his direction, but the ice shattered almost as soon as it formed. Sym's strength was simply too monstrous by that point. The bomb, of course, might have had an effect, if only it could reach him.

However, Sym saw the bomb coming, and sighed heavily. He had to end the fight, and so soon after it had started. Sym was disappointed in the X-men.

After only a moment, Sym raised both hands, and clapped them together hard, filling the air with powerful, violent vibrations that swept away the energy bomb, and tenderized the X-men, both inside and out. Ororo fell to the ground, as Bobby, Scott, Jubilation, and Kurt all lost consciousness. Even Logan was out cold in moments, as the vibrations tore at his physical stability. However, there was one whose body was shielded just enough to protect him from the vibrations of such a strong attack.

"Your fight is not over, monster." Piotr said, getting back to his feet in a hurry.

In just a moment, Piotr had picked up Logan's unconscious body by the wrist, and flung him hard at Sym, claws-out. The speed and force with which Piotr had thrown Logan was as much as he could muster, and with his strength backing the razor-sharp claws headed in Sym's direction, it was the only thing Piotr could have done to oppose the monstrously-strong daemon.

* * *

Logan groaned as he started to regain consciousness. He wasn't sure where he was; just that he'd never been there before, and the X-men were lying on the floor all around him. The room that he was in was a large chamber with deep red walls and archways with curtains across them, leading into adjoining chambers. On one side of the room was what looked like a window, and standing in front of that window was a hideous throne, that seemed to be made of daemon bones, held together with hardened magma. There, sitting in that throne was the daemon lord that Logan had come to recognize as Belasco. Quickly, Logan looked over the other X-men. Piotr had a nasty bump on the head, but in general, it probably wouldn't take too much to wake them. Logan quickly started shaking them around, trying to force them back to consciousness, but Belasco just chuckled when he did that.

"Go ahead." Belasco said, "Wake them. You lost so quickly to Sym, that I'd be interested in learning what your plan of battle is. Of course, you must realize that I am his superior in every way."

Logan felt like shuddering. The thought had occurred to him. Just as Logan had feared, the X-men were in far over their heads.

Belasco could obviously sense Logan's fear, despite his best efforts to hide it as he continued waking the other X-men, most of whom were just as terrified as he was, with the exception of Bobby; who didn't seem to know enough to be terrified and Piotr; the one student who simply had other things on his mind.

For a minute or two, Belasco just smiled as his three closest lieutenants joined him in the throne room. The X-men had never seen N'astirh or M'ballam before, but they recognized Sym. He looked about the same as he had the last time they'd seen him, except with three stripe-shaped scabs along his left arm, indicating that he'd recently been cut there. Only Piotr, however, remembered how it had happened. As the X-men awoke, still suffering from major aches in their heads and chests, however, Belasco spoke, smiling the whole time.

"You know, you earthlings really surprised me. Of course, I saw your prowess in battle, and assumed that you were somewhat like us, but imagine my surprise, when after hours of grueling study, I discovered that human beings attach value to life itself, and some even have reservations about killing. Well, you can't understand what a shock that was, without really knowing what it means to be a daemon. Limbo would turn anyone into a killer, or into a corpse, you understand, so I never really noticed the innate mentality of the people entering my realm. By the time visitors got to me, they'd either adopted the sensible, survivalist mentality of Limbo, or else, had no mentality at all."

"What have you done to my sister, daemon?" Piotr demanded.

"Nothing special." Belasco replied, "I offered her no special treatment, based on her origins. I guess you could say that I treated her fairly; as if she were any other citizen of Limbo."

"Will you let us go?" Logan asked, willing to drop the pretenses. Belasco was smart enough to know that he had the X-men in a corner.

"I might." the daemon king said, "Frankly, I'm not ready to make any large-scale decisions regarding your fates. To be blunt, you're not important enough. I could be convinced to let you live, based on a recommendation from my second in command, however."

"Which one's your second?" Logan asked, looking around at the three large daemons surrounding the throne, but Belasco shook his head.

"As of last month here in Limbo, Sym has been diminished to my third, reducing these other two to fourth and fifth positions. You see, there is a new, more powerful being here in Limbo, second in strength and ruthlessness only to myself. Would you like to meet her?"

"God, no..." Logan thought to himself in horror. Even Scott looked horrified before the curtains on the other side of the room slid open, and a short, blond, teenage girl with blue eyes emerged from beyond. She was wearing a white, skintight outfit, with gleaming white boots, and grinning just as Belasco was, and she had a thick, heavy-looking axe strapped to her back, and a glowing red bracelet on one of her arms. All of the X-men froze when they saw her, but in Piotr, the sight sent a particular chill through his body.

"Il... Illyana." Piotr muttered.

Sure enough, it was her. Illyana was so much older than she'd been the last time that Piotr had seen her, but then, Belasco had mentioned that the passage of time in Limbo was different than on Earth. It hadn't been long ago, to him, that she'd been the happy, little girl who'd looked up to him, and whom he'd carried around on one shoulder. The fiery teenager who seemed only a few years younger than him definitely was her, but it would have been so much easier to believe that she wasn't, in fact, his sister.

"Well, Magik?" Belasco asked, "What do you think? These humans come from your own world. One of them is even your own brother, I believe. Should I spare them? Return them to their own world? Maybe even call off the invasion, for their sake?"

However, the wicked grin on Illyana's face didn't fade as she spoke in a voice that was familiar, yet tainted with an edge of cruelty and mercilessness, that Piotr had never imagined hearing in her before.

"And make a mockery of Limbo's ways?" Illyana asked with pure, cruel derision, "Why would I want that?"

* * *

To be continued...


	13. X Institute 13: Is it Wrong?

The Xavier Institute Neo

Issue 13

"Is it Wrong?"

* * *

Most of the X-men just stared at Illyana as she spoke. They couldn't believe it. After all that Piotr had said about Illyana, he'd made her sound like the perfect, innocent, harmless little angel, and maybe that was really the kind of person he'd known, but the girl who'd come to be known as Magik was a very different kind of person. She was vicious, ruthless, and bloodthirsty; a true champion of Limbo and all it stood for. It was Illyana, right down to her strong Russian accent, but at the same time, Magik couldn't have been more different from her.

"So, what do you suggest, my dear?" Belasco asked, still grinning, "What should we do with them?"

"Let them prove that they're worthy to survive." Illyana said, looking a little amused, "They've already lost to Sym, but I'm willing to suppose that it may have been because they were unprepared for such ferocity. Now that they know the kind of force they'll be facing here, any further failures will be their own doing."

"A contest, then?" Belasco asked, "A competition is what you're suggesting."

"Yes." Illyana said, "They're champions of their own world, so let them fight one of our champions."

"Sym again?" Belasco asked, but Illyana shook her head.

"He was wounded in his battle with them last time. Their chances of victory are too good. I'll fight them myself."

That time, Belasco seemed very amused, and chuckled slightly under his breath, before asking "What? Do you mean here and now?"

"Why not?" Illyana asked curiously.

"Why not indeed." Belasco replied, still smiling, "Let's make our point, Magik. Show these humans why the daemons of Limbo have so much to teach them."

"My pleasure." Illyana said eagerly, stepping towards the X-men with the same brutal smile on her face. Logan saw the signs in her gaze, her posture, and her attitude. She was truly serious about fighting them all at once, and what worried Logan most of all was that the look in her eyes reminded him of a man he'd once known, and a man he hoped never to meet again.

However, when Illyana got to within a yard of Scott Summers, she rolled her eyes once, and spoke, for the first time, directly to the X-men.

"If you're not even going to stand up, I'll attack first, but I'd prefer if you were ready to defend yourselves. I don't want a partial victory over the champions of planet Earth; especially not you, dear brother."

"Illyana..." Piotr muttered, struggling to choke down his horror and distress, "What has happened to you?"

"Seven years of hard lessons." Illyana replied, "Why is that important?"

"You must not do this, Illyana." Piotr said at last, determination fighting for dominance over his voice, "You must not allow Belasco to win. I know that you can still be the innocent girl that I knew, if you just..."

"Innocence is an illusion, Piotr." Illyana replied, "No one is totally innocent, and even if someone were, what would be the point? I'm surprised you haven't learned this yet, fighting as you do, but innocence is not something to be pursued. It is merely another form of weakness. Now, fight me!"

"Why, Illyana?" Piotr implored her, "Why must we fight?"

"It is because you are still a foolish person, defending a foolish people." Illyana replied, "If you see the error of your ways, there may be a position for you in Limbo as a close lieutenant of my own. If not, you will have earned a clean death in battle, albeit a disappointing one, fighting for the wrong side. Fight me, brother. Fight me with all of your allies. You once impressed me with your strength. Show me that strength again, and I will show you mine."

"No." Piotr replied, "I will not fight you, Illyana. We are brother and sister. I will not fight you."

"You need to rid yourself of this distracting sentimentality, brother." Illyana said, "It is the only way you can survive."

At once, Piotr's body transformed, turning fully metallic, and growing in strength and endurance. It was the mutant power on which he depended for protection, and he was no stranger to using it as a weapon as well, but it was his sister; the very sister he'd braved so many dangers and taken so many risks to find.

"I will not fight you, Illyana."

"That's it." Illyana replied, "I don't care whether you're ready or not. Here I come."

Immediately, Illyana charged forward, but was met in midair by Bobby, who was iced up and ready for action. Ice spread along his fingers, and soon formed a large enclosure, looking a lot like a cage, which clamped down around her at once, trapping her in an icy prison, but she reacted quickly, shouting the words "Zeitai Fwooda!"

At once, fire seemed to erupt from Illyana's body in all directions, traveling out from her in a hundred balls of fire that melted the ice completely, and drove the X-men to try to find cover. Ororo, however, had another plan.

Moving quickly, Ororo had summoned up a whirlwind, which surrounded Illyana on all sides, hurling her into the air. Illyana floated in mid-air for several seconds, as Ororo prepared a defense of her own; an invisible barrier of spinning air surrounding her own body. It was intended to be the perfect defense from any kind of airborne attack, like the sort that Illyana had just used, while keeping Illyana spinning, and too disoriented to determine Ororo's precise location. At that moment, Scott could have attacked with his beams and finished the fight, but he didn't dare to strike down Illyana. Killing daemons who were evil by their very nature was one thing, especially when they gave you no quarter, but Illyana was human, and what's more, she was Piotr's sister. Scott wasn't about to become a murderer.

It seemed to take Illyana a moment to realize what had happened, but once she got a handle on where she was, her response was swift.

"Greide Hardalo Gogad!" she exclaimed, and at once, the winds started to die away, and Illyana fell to the floor, bracing her arms against the hard stone to break her fall, as she rolled on the ground once, then leapt back upright again. As expected, her spell had done its work, and Ororo was kneeling on the ground, clutching her midsection with both hands, and clearly in tremendous pain. Suddenly, Illyana was right next to her, and drove her right foot into Ororo's midsection.

When Illyana kicked Ororo, it was done with the very edge of her foot, like a true martial-artist, in just such a way as to do the most damage to the least space, and it felt like being hit in the stomach with an axe. What made it even worse, though, was that the spell's effect was only being worsened by the attack. In just a moment, Ororo rolled over on the floor in agony, and opened her mouth in a pain-induced convulsion, causing a pink, slimy substance of unknown composition to leave her mouth and take up residence on the floor. It almost looked like bubble gum, but whatever it was, it was the effect of Illyana's last spell, and it had definitely had a bad impact on Ororo while it had been inside of her. She looked half dead as she lay on the floor, though the pain in her stomach seemed to be gone.

"Is this your idea of friendship, brother?" Illyana asked, "You stand by and watch as your friends suffer? Then again, you did lead them to this place when you didn't need to. Is it only death that sways you?"

Piotr didn't dare to reply, as Illyana ducked out of the way of a punch by Logan and a kick by Kurt. In just a moment more, she swung back at both of them, but Logan reacted quickly, by grabbing her by one wrist, as Kurt aimed a kick at her again.

Piotr was feeling ill as he watched Illyana doing battle with the other X-men. It was destroying him inside to see his own little sister fighting so hard against his closest friends. It was worse than just being told to fight someone he cared deeply about. Piotr knew that if he stayed on the fence while those he cared most about fought one another, it would be as if he'd fought against them all, and everyone would have lost. At last, after everything he'd done; everything he'd struggled towards, risked and sacrificed to find his sister, Piotr, who loved her more than anyone, needed to make the decision of who to protect. It wasn't an easy decision, but it had to be made.

As Illyana kicked Kurt away, and struggled with Logan, Piotr rushed forward and drove his fist into his sister's chin. As much as Piotr loved his family, his friends had risked their lives to be by his side during his search. He was an X-man, and the X-men protected their own.

It was the first thought that had gone through his head when Piotr had chosen to retaliate against Illyana, but as he watched her fly through the air in the direction of the back wall, he realized that there was another reason that he'd chosen to attack her. He wanted to revive the person she'd been. Piotr still had a hope, though slim and vague, that she might remember who she'd once been, and regain her senses. He wanted Illyana to learn that one lesson that would force her to reconsider the ones she'd learned in Limbo.

However, people sometimes take the wrong thing away from an action intended to teach them. As Illyana landed at the other side of the room, once again diving into a roll along the ground, to leap back to her feet with as few bruises as possible, she licked her lips eagerly with a sadistic smile, and said "If you're finally ready, can I start to fight for real?"

"Illyana..." Piotr pleaded, his fists still clenched, "Do not do this..."

"Greide Bren Cliko," Illyana exclaimed, in an occult incantation that hadn't been heard on Earth for thousands of years, "Greide Bren Hoopo, Greide Bren Dojotu!"

Suddenly, a light shone up from the ground, casting shadows through the whole room, and making Illyana's shadow look truly massive against the ceiling. As the lights diminished, however, a glowing blue circle still remained at Illyana's feet, consisting of three circles, expanding outward; one around Illyana's feet, one just outside the length of her arms, and one a yard beyond that in all directions. Along the largest ring of light were even more circles, superimposed over it at regular intervals, but glowing with the same blue light. There were five of them, and each contained an occult symbol of a different type, probably representing different disciplines of magic. Seeing what his own sister had been doing since she'd first gotten lost in Limbo was making Piotr feel even sicker than ever. His fists tightened, as Belasco grinned from his throne nearby.

"So she has a fifth now." The daemon lord remarked with a smile, "How can humans have great warriors like this in their very midst, and not train them?"

In moments, the fight had begun again. Bobby, once more, had taken the initiative, hurling shards of ice at Illyana, his fear of Piotr's retaliation rapidly dissipating. However, just as the ice-shards neared Illyana, the smaller circles underneath her rotated around the perimeter of the largest one, anticipating the arrival of the new attacks, and so, it seemed, could she. Quickly and easily, Illyana spun around, and seized the small, knife-like ice shards in between her fingertips, then hurled them at Ororo with incredible force. The shards of ice quickly became lodged in a small ice wall that Bobby conjured up to stop them from hurting Ororo, but by that point, Illyana had gotten to within a few feet of him, and drove her left foot into his chest, shattering his ice armor, and clearly causing him intense pain. Bobby could feel that something inside his chest had been injured by the kick, but that was just about all he could feel as he slowly lost consciousness.

Jubilation and Scott started firing at Illyana the moment Bobby went down, and a moment later, Ororo seemed to be recovering, and tried to join in the fire fight with blasts of concentrated wind, but the small circles at Illyana's feet seemed to function as a different, more powerful kind of eye, alerting her not only to the presence of attacks, but telling her how to react to them as well. Though the attacks of her enemies covered a huge amount of ground, Illyana weaved easily back and forth out of their path, as if in a well-practiced dance, except for the cold, callous cruelty with which she moved. In moments, her hands reached outward, and charged blasts of power began striking out at her attackers, crumbling rocks and crushing pillars and floors alike. The X-men were barely able to duck out of the way of the blasts themselves. Jubilation was caught under a falling rock, and Scott was struck in the side of the head by a piece of debris, at which point Kurt, Logan and Piotr made their move.

As one, the three fighters descended on Illyana, reaching for her from multiple sides, but the circles underneath her rotated around again, and in just a second, she'd blocked their attacks with both hands and one knee, then spun around, and struck all three of them with her left leg, knocking them all back. However, that was no ordinary kick. Something about the spell that Illyana was using was making her stronger than a human girl should be, and even Piotr felt the impact of her kick hard against his chest, while Logan and Kurt seemed to have lost consciousness at once. Piotr finally landed near Ororo, who was still directing harsh winds desperately towards their foe, but that was when Illyana did something that changed everything about the situation.

Aiming one hand at Ororo in an occult gesture once more, Illyana fired a blast of power directly into Ororo's chest.

The resulting thud echoed in Piotr's heart, as Ororo fell to the ground. The large hole in her stomach was all the proof that a sensible man would need of just what had happened to her, but that didn't change Piotr's feelings at all. Even if he were to defeat Illyana then and there, and leave Limbo forever, Ororo... the one who'd reached out to him most often, despite his angst... the one who'd been the closest friend that he had, in all the time he'd spent at the Xavier Institute...

Leaning over her lifeless, bloodied body, Piotr started to cry. The tears ran down his cheeks like tiny waterfalls of bitterness and despair, and a few fell on Ororo's face as well, though none fell to the floor.

"You don't even know the first thing about surviving, do you brother?" Illyana asked, as she got closer, "I used to be envious of you, but now I'm not. The power that you've had for so many years seems amazing to a little girl, but having that advantage has robbed you of adversity. Without having faced that adversity, you're deficient in so many ways. I could kill the rest of you right now, and you'd be in no position to stop me."

However, at that point, Piotr dared to reign in the tears, and turn to face Illyana one last time.

"Magik," he said, referring to her by the name that Belasco had called her by; the daemon name she'd been given. Illyana was taken aback for once, as she listened to him speak, "I do not know what happened to my sister, but I will not rest until I find out."

"Don't try to trick me, brother." Illyana replied, "I'm too smart for those old ploys."

"Do you remember our parents?" Piotr asked, "Do you remember any of the time you spent with them? Do you know what they felt for you? What I felt?"

"Yes." Illyana remarked, though she didn't let any of her agitation show in her face, "I remember it all. For the first several years of my life, they gave me sanctuary."

"I do not know what ill fortune led you to arrive in Limbo, or why you have decided that our parents' teachings meant nothing," Piotr almost barked, "but I still remember them vividly. I see them every day in my thoughts and memories, urging me on, in doing right. They are my voice of good judgment... and they would have been ashamed of you."

"Shut up!" Illyana exclaimed, rushing forward with horrifying speed, and kicking Piotr in the chin, "Do you think I should be blamed and judged forever by the standards of our inferior race? All those old, tired clichés of morals... of doing right. The people who formed them didn't know true suffering, or the struggle to survive! In Limbo, I learned that ruthlessness is just another form of strength, and that only the strong can truly get what they desire!"

"Is this... what you desire?" Piotr asked, feeling the dent that had formed in his left cheek "Is it truly?"

Illyana's lower lip had begun to twitch slightly as Piotr slowly got back to his feet with a look of misery in his eyes.

"Belasco believes that suffering is all that is needed to teach human beings an ironclad philosophy of strength." Piotr said boldly as he glared at his sister, "I think that your response to his attacks against you reinforced that belief, but I do not agree with him. Daemons are cruel, selfish, and wicked. They unite only in causing misery to others, and they have no dreams or hopes, except to destroy; they have no plans for making life better, or for fairness or justice; only for increasing their power, and you claim to believe in the same thing now. However, you are still not a daemon yourself. You are a human being. You say that you have been judged as weak because you are human, but is it truly a weakness to have the chance to choose life over death? Mercy over cruelty? Even having the chance to choose weakness over strength? If you do not have that choice, then what sort of power do you think you have? Does even Belasco have the choice to lead his people in peace? Do you truly wish to be enslaved to this one path?"

For a few moments, it seemed that Illyana's resolve was weakening, and when Piotr used the word "enslaved," her expression changed completely.

"There is one thing..." Illyana said, "one thing that I do need to take care of. Within five more seconds, I will have the power to get what I truly desire."

Piotr couldn't have known what Illyana meant by that, but Belasco seemed to understand completely. In only a moment, the daemon lord's whole body had started glowing brightly, and he stood up from his throne, looking angry and disappointed. However, he was too late. The five seconds were up, and Illyana turned away from Piotr to face her lord and master.

"So, you really did learn the lessons that I had to teach you." Belasco muttered with a scowl.

"I had an advantage in that respect." Illyana replied, her grin returning, "When I first came to Limbo, I was foolish and trusting, so naturally, the first big lesson that I had to learn was how and when to be suspicious of others. Since then, I've entered into every alliance with suspicion first, including my alliance with you. My first thought when you agreed to have me in your private army was the determination to learn what, if anything, you were hiding from me."

"So you mastered a spell for opening enchanted locks, broke into my chambers and read my books." Belasco correctly concluded.

"Every last one." Illyana replied, "Of course, it sped up my learning curve in magic considerably, but I think that the most valuable knowledge that I found in those books were your plans for the invasion of Earth. Of course, I wasn't too surprised to learn that no magic spell could take daemons to other realities like mine, although using an enchantment to bring me to your world was an interesting little circumvention of that rule. You could bring me here; you just couldn't send me back. But then, you didn't want to send me back, did you?"

"Why would I want to send you back?" Belasco asked, "I knew you'd either become fodder for one of my warriors, or a great warrior yourself. Either way, I would..."

"There's no point in trying to lie anymore." Illyana interrupted him, "You didn't want me to become a warrior; you wanted me to be a slave; a drone; a mindless soldier in your service. You never wanted me to become strong enough to outdo Sym, or M'ballam. In fact, you only even wanted me around for one reason. You'd seen into my future. You knew that like my brother, I was a mutant, and at a certain point, my mutant powers would begin to work at full strength, until I could control them. You knew exactly when that point would be, and now, so do I. You knew exactly what my powers were going to be, and now, I do as well."

Piotr was feeling torn as he watched the underworld drama unfolding before his eyes. Professor Xavier had once told him that mutant genes are much more likely to occur in members of the same family, but he'd never in his life thought that Illyana might have had mutant powers. After all, his brother Mikhail had been human.

"I have the greatest power of them all now, Belasco." Illyana said with a grin, "I have the power to go where I want, when I want, and bring whoever I want with me. I could return to Earth now, just as you'd planned, and bring your armies with me, or I could return alone, or with the X-men. I could probably go to any number of other places too, if I wanted; even realms that you've only dreamed of visiting."

"Perhaps." Belasco said, still frowning, "However, there is one factor that you have yet to consider, my dear, sweet Magik. For the moment, you are still here in Limbo, and it is my realm. Nothing that has happened recently has changed that. Your power may be impressive, and most dangerous, but if you've chosen to leave my service, that only makes us rivals; nothing more."

"Then there was the first major lesson that you yourself taught me." Illyana said, her grin finally fading, "Letting a rival survive is a sign of despicable weakness."

At once, Illyana leapt over half a dozen yards across the room, colliding hard with Belasco, shattering both the throne and window behind him, as the two fell from the highest floor of the Castle of Despair, each continuing to attack the other with all their might as they plummeted towards the ground.

"Illyana..." Piotr muttered. He was almost certain that she'd fallen to her death, taking the daemon king with her, but as many of the X-men were just starting to reawaken, Sym shook his head once.

"Nah." he said, seeming to have anticipated Piotr's concern, "Those two ain't that wimpy. In fact, you may see 'em again in just a minnit."

At it had turned out, Sym was quite correct in his assessment of the powers of the two champions of Limbo. In only moments, an enormous, red cloak covered the outside of the castle, and in moments after that, a powerful trembling was felt throughout the whole structure. Seconds later, the massive cloak moved back, and there was more trembling, and as the noise and sights moved further away from the castle, Piotr could see what they were, and the sight made him swallow in... well, in mortal terror, because no man in hundreds of years had ever felt so mortal as he felt then. Through the hole in the stone wall, Piotr could see the lower castle floors, the chasm outside the castle, and the daemon territories beyond that. Lesser daemons ran for cover like crowds of tiny specks, away from the two who were fighting in their midst; each hundreds of feet high, and each wielding magic of a class rarely seen; even in Limbo. From Belasco's eyes came fire, but Illyana held up her own hand to deflect it with a gleaming light, then seemed to throw a flaming meteor at the daemon king, who swatted it aside with the back of his hand. Fiery spells were traded between the two of them that made new volcanoes in the landscape, a frigid chill escaped once from Illyana's mouth that froze miles of Limbo's battlefields in an enormous ice age, and lightning was hurled by their hands and eyes, that created new, bottomless chasms in Limbo's landscape. Their every step was an earthquake, and their every blow a hurricane... It was truly like watching a war between the gods.

The fact that Piotr couldn't be certain that either combatant favored him only made the experience more like dealing with ancient, pagan gods, but one way or another, the battle was theirs to resolve. He could make no difference in it.

* * *

"What are you waiting for?" Belasco asked in a voice that resonated through vast acres of Limbo, "You can do better than that."

Illyana just grinned, as both of her hands started to glow, and in moments, blasts of occult force exploded out from her fingertips, expanding as they neared Belasco's position, until, in a blast of unearthly power, his entire body was consumed in fire and devastation. Illyana just kept grinning as she watched the destruction. It was surprising, in a way, that the daemon lord had so severely underestimated her, but a victory was a victory.

However, just as Illyana had been about to turn back for the castle, she caught a glimpse of something that made her feel truly afraid. The flames, and rampant destructive energy were starting to die down, and what remained in their place... was Belasco, a large hole in his torso rapidly vanishing, as he smiled at Illyana confidently.

"I have resources that I never wrote about in any of my books." Belasco said with a smile, gesturing to the amulet that he wore around his neck, which housed a large, green gemstone, "Once I saw how powerful you were becoming, I decided to start wearing the lifestone. It's a recent experiment of mine that left me drained for almost a week. I had to pretend to be busy during that time, in order to remain in power. However, the result was worth it. It's invulnerable, and can only be removed by the wearer, and it protects the life of its owner with magic stronger than any in Limbo, including my own. In short, you can't hurt me unless I want to be hurt."

Then, suddenly, Belasco lunged forward, and struck Illyana in the chin, knocking her clear across hundreds of acres of distance, until she came to rest on top of three bottomless pits, five burnt-out forests, and two battle-scarred fields. It was the punch itself, however, that had caused Illyana the most pain. Belasco was her equal in a hundred different ways, and considerably better than her in several others. Even if he hadn't been wearing a magic amulet to protect himself, Illyana would have had a hard time claiming victory against him, and yet, if what he'd said was true, then he was right, and her fight was truly hopeless.

"I could just kill you right now." Belasco remarked, sounding merely upset as he spoke to her, "I'm sorely tempted to. Still, I did go to a lot of trouble to bring you here; sending the gemstones to Earth where you could find them, sending you messages pretending to be your friend and so forth... I'd so much rather you changed your mind, and came back into my service again; at least for the next week. If you want, I could even set you up as regional governor of the planet Earth, until your short, human lifespan comes to its end. Managing more than one planet would be hard work, even for me. It would be so much more comforting to have you there as a puppet-leader who I could... predict."

However, even if Belasco killed her, Illyana had no intention of backing down. She'd faced worse odds before in the tear dungeons, in the scavenging pits, in the battlefields,. and in acquiring the axe of strength and the bracelet of sorcery, and she'd faced worse odds when she'd entered Belasco's army, challenging superior after superior, until she was strong enough to overcome Sym. All the time, she'd continued to discover new levels; new plateaus... She couldn't back down.

But what was the solution? How could she defeat the lord of Limbo? He'd already told her that his amulet was more powerful than any sorcery in... in Limbo. That meant she needed something that was also more powerful than sorcery.

All at once, a briefing flooded back into her thoughts. When she'd first made her way into Belasco's cabinet, he'd revealed to them all the real prize that awaited them in the human world.

"It's not for nothing that I want to claim the Earth." Belasco had said, "You see, in my studies, I've learned that humans are ideal for experimenting on. They have these items... these slivers of their substance called souls, which, when properly harnessed, represent power beyond that of any daemon, or any spell. Even a tiny, microscopic speck of a soul contains enough power to overwhelm any spell or enchantment in the daemon world completely."

The circles of light that still surrounded Illyana on the ground began to glow bright white as she formed her plan, and suddenly, she'd vanished, and Belasco sighed.

"Running away." he muttered, "I thought you were a better daemon than that, Magik."

"I am no daemon," Illyana said, as she reappeared behind Belasco, the disc still on the ground under her feet, "and this is why."

As she spoke, Illyana held up something in between her fingertips, that Belasco had never seen before. It was covered in dark shadows, but it still sparkled from certain angles. It was so small, however, that he couldn't see it distinctly.

"What..." Belasco muttered in worried confusion, "What is that?"

"It's a bit of my soul." Illyana replied viciously, clenching her fist tightly around it, "Let's just see how powerful your amulet really is."

"No! No, how could you get that?" Belasco demanded to know.

"I told you that I could go places you could only dream about." Illyana said, "That includes the soul world. However, it seems that mine was the only one I had a close enough connection with. I wonder if other souls would have the same power."

"No..." Belasco muttered again, fear forming at last in his expression, as Illyana uttered yet another incantation.

"Greide Bren Zwisho."

In moments, Belasco began to back away, as Illyana felt the soul bit fading from her hand, and an enormous, two-handed sword appearing in its place. If any weapon at all could kill the daemon king, it would be her soul sword.

Once again, the two resumed their fight, but Belasco was nervous and afraid, and for good reason. Again and again, he was putting up enormous magic shields, and again and again, Illyana was cutting through them with the sword. If there was something about it that enabled it to annul magic, Belasco couldn't have understood what it was. Magic was something that he was experienced with, but he'd never had a soul.

At last, the fight took them back to the castle, where Illyana finally managed to back him up against the castle's tall towers, and once cornered like that, seized him by one arm, just as he was attempting another spell. With a single swipe of her sword, the daemon lord's arm fell to the courtyard grounds, reverting to its normal size as it fell. Belasco winced only slightly at the pain, because he'd felt so much worse in the past, but that pain was different, because that injury wasn't healing. Belasco knew for certain that Illyana meant to kill him, and had the power to do so. For a moment, he felt the horror and panic of any wild creature backed into a corner, but the panic was only a reaction. After a few seconds of contemplating the situation, Belasco realized that what was happening was not, in fact, the end of the story, or the end of Limbo. In the grand scheme of things, even his own death meant very little.

That was when Belasco's spells began to fade, and he started shrinking away to normal size, coming to rest just outside the gates of the castle that had once been his. In only a moment, Illyana had reduced her own size as well, and there she remained, still standing over him with the sword; the one weapon that made her more powerful than any of Limbo's daemons. As she neared Belasco with the blade, ready to execute him, as she had so many others, she noticed something that forced her to stop right where she was. Belasco was chuckling.

"Why are you laughing, daemon?" Illyana demanded furiously, "Is that the extent to which your love of death had grown; that you find your own amusing?"

Belasco was silent for a few seconds, clearly having a hard time thinking his words through, but when he spoke, his words chilled Illyana to the core, for the first time in what had felt, to her, like years.

"Have you ever killed anything for no reason? I know you've killed daemons for power, control, and status, but for nothing at all? Have you ever killed someone who had a powerful item that you sort of wanted, but then, after you killed them, you decided that it wasn't the right color, or didn't have precisely the ability that you wanted it to, and left it where it was?"

Illyana was still furious, but suddenly, she was confused as well.

"What does that have to do with anything?"

"So you haven't." Belasco replied with a smile, "You've grown so powerful, and yet, there's still a hint of human morality in you. I'll bet you've even used a number of items that you never wanted, just to convince yourself that your killings could be justified. Well? Am I right?"

Illyana hesitated in replying, which told Belasco all he needed to know.

"The first time that I killed for no reason was three months after I first rose to power." Belasco said, "I'm sure hearing the circumstances would bore you, but it was an illuminating day, because at last, I was totally supporting by my feelings; the feelings that daemons are born with, which encourage us in killing and acquiring power. Those feelings meant that I at last had total freedom to do what I wanted without remorse. There was no room for regret in the life of a daemon king, and there is no room for it in a daemon queen's life."

"D-daemon queen..." Illyana muttered. She truly hadn't considered what it would mean for her to take Belasco's place as ruler of Limbo. To be looked up to as the queen of all the daemons was a big responsibility, and a big burden, particularly if Piotr had been right. There was, Illyana realized, a chance that she really would lose the freedom to choose her own path if she became queen of Limbo, and what was worse, Belasco was right about at least one of the things he'd said. As furious as she was with the former daemon lord, if she took the step of killing him, she'd feel compelled to retain his throne for as long as she could. Of course, the power and authority would come with its own temptations, but could she really still choose to do what she wanted to, if she felt obligated to retain his position of leadership over a race that thrived on bloodshed and conflict?

In essence, it was a choice. Belasco had been either her oppressor, or her tormentor for the entire time that she'd known him. In many ways, he was Illyana's most powerful enemy, and his eventual defeat had been a dream of hers for years and years. Still, if she was being given the choice between her revenge and her freedom... In a way, even if she did kill Belasco, he still would have won, giving birth, by his death, to an even stronger ruler of Limbo, and paving the way for the eventual downfall of many other worlds.

"Kill me" Belasco said, his laughter fading, but his smile remaining intact, "and become me."

For several moments, the two simply stayed frozen; Illyana with her sword pointed at Belasco's throat. Then, in a swift motion, she lunged forward, twisting the blade to one side, and raising it up, and Belasco gasped in terror as he realized what she'd done. The soul sword had broken yet another spell, and from its tip hung the lifestone on its golden chain.

"I have defeated you." Illyana said, grasping the lifestone in her own hand, "I've defeated you completely and totally. You no longer have any rights. You do not have the right to joy, to freedom, or to triumph, and you especially do not have the right to tell the new daemon queen what to do."

Quickly, Illyana had draped the lifestone around her own neck, and Belasco's smile faded completely as he trembled in fear, not only for himself, but for all of Limbo.

"In another time, you might have said that you would kill me if I did not kill you," Illyana continued, the lifestone gleaming around her neck, "but you no longer have that right either. If you want the chance for control and victory, that you have so badly lost, you must earn it all over again."

In one hand, Illyana seized Belasco by his cloak, and dragged him along the ground, to the edge of the chasm surrounding the castle. The wicked grin on her face remained intact as she spoke to him.

"I began my journey in the deepest pits, Belasco, and now you will too. It will be a journey full of hopelessness and despair, because you will know that for the first time since I entered Limbo, you have no control over what I will do next. You, who love bloodshed and despair, will look to me as the ruler of this realm, and see only hope and balance. I hope that you choke on it."

Then, Illyana flung Belasco into the chasm, and she could still hear him screaming and cursing for a great, long time as he fell down into the deepest darkness of the kingdom that had once been his.

* * *

When Illyana stepped lightly through the destroyed wall, into the throne room that would be hers from then on, she saw Sym, N'astirh and M'ballam all bowing their heads in recognition of her queenship over Limbo. None of them could have challenged her for it. After seven long years of battles and challenges, Illyana had prevailed over the greatest adversity, to become the greatest daemon warrior of them all.

"Leave us!" Illyana commanded to her three daemon lieutenants, who bowed once more, and left, perfectly silently. Each knew that it was best to react quickly and obediently to the commands of their new queen.

When the daemons had left the room, Illyana sighed deeply, then leapt over to the other side of the room, and removed the large rocks from where they'd been keeping Jubilation pinned to the ground, although the young mutant girl had already begun to regain consciousness. Logan, it seemed, had been the first one back on his feet, but for the most part, all of the X-men were awake again, or awakening when Illyana had entered by the shattered window, with one notable exception.

Piotr felt a bit ashamed when he'd seen Illyana rescuing Jubilation. He could easily have done the very same thing, but he hadn't been able to wrench himself away from Ororo's body. Nothing had quite had so much impact on him since he'd entered Limbo as the death of his closest friend. In fact, even as his own sister approached him from behind, he was only able to take his eyes off the body of his dead comrade for a moment.

"You told me that becoming the ruler of Limbo would take away my freedom to choose my own destiny." Illyana said, "As you've never been Limbo's ruler, I'm inclined to be skeptical that you have any idea what you're talking about. Still, I'm not ready to deny that what you say is possible. I have spent so long in this daemon realm, brother, that I no longer have any feel for what it means to be human, or indeed, what is so special about the human condition. However, I understand the value of having the freedom to do right, and I cannot say for certain that I have the freedom to choose right by human standards, unless I can prove that I am capable of doing a good turn for others."

As she spoke, Illyana removed the lifestone from around her neck, and bent over Ororo's lifeless body, slipping it over her head. In moments, its powerful magic had begun its work, sealing up the hole in Ororo's chest, and rebuilding her shattered bones and organs in a flash. At last, Illyana drew her sword again, using it to remove the stone from Ororo, and placing it around her own neck once more. Only a moment later, Ororo's eyes shot open, and she began to breathe in and out. At first, it seemed to be something of a struggle. Then, after a minute, her breathing started to grow more regular. As that was happening, however, Illyana had turned away from the X-men, and begun reciting more spells under her breath, which were rebuilding the window and throne of the room they were in, but things weren't being rebuilt in quite the way they'd been before.

Instead of cheap blood-red, the walls were shining in a multitude of different colors, like gold, silver, and steel; encrusted with glittering gemstones. The throne itself shone like gold, as it rose up before their eyes, with massive gems at its shoulders, and a giant, blood-red ruby in its center, at the top of the backrest. The whole throne was several times too large for Illyana to need, or make any kind of practical use out of. Smaller gems laced the armrests, and the claw-like shapes that made up the bottoms of the chair legs, as Illyana floated into the air, coming to rest on that enormous throne. From that position; seated there, her feet couldn't even brush against the room's floor, but she didn't look upset by that. In fact, she looked like she was drawing even greater enjoyment from that enormous seat of power.

"It still needs something." Illyana muttered, as she looked around the room that she'd just transformed, "perhaps a rich, purple carpet. I'll wait on that, however."

By that point, Ororo was back on her feet, amazed and horrified by what Piotr's once-innocent sister had become, yet she knew of the awesome power that little girl had, and the even more awesome responsibility that she needed to bear. The enormous throne, and its small occupant were a symbolic sight, in some ways.

"As ruler of this realm, I alone have the authority to send you back where you came from." Illyana said, "I will ask for nothing in exchange, except that you do not attempt to invade Limbo again."

"Please..." Piotr said as a large, shining circle began to appear in the center of the throne room, "Come back with us. Now that you've chosen to do good..."

"I chose to expand the horizons of my power, brother." Illyana replied with a scowl, "Nothing more. I will not sacrifice that power for anyone or anything. Still... there is a part of me that wishes to see the world of my birth again, if only to be reminded of the joy I once felt there..."

Illyana was silent for a few seconds, as the X-men gathered on the bright, shining circle that she'd created, their only hope that she would indeed send them back home. Finally, Illyana spoke once more.

"Much power has changed hands over the last few minutes, and there has been a great deal of bloodshed and slaughter." Illyana explained slowly, "It will take time before I can safely leave Limbo in the hands of intermediaries. Still, when I believe that I have the obedience of my people, and can trust Limbo to take care of itself for a short time, I may choose to visit you again, so do not lose hope, my brother. There may yet come a time when we will be able to live together once more, as brother and sister."

Piotr didn't like that answer. He didn't like it for a hundred different reasons, the most obvious of which was that in every word Illyana had said to him since he'd discovered her in Limbo, she'd declared to him that she'd been scarred by the massive suffering that she'd endured, and those were scars of corruption and violence that couldn't just disappear.

However, Illyana had also chosen to save Ororo's life, and to send them home unconditionally, which meant that as little as Piotr liked the way things had turned out; at least Belasco had been wrong about the nature of corruption. Pain, misery and conflict had led to Illyana's struggle for power, but it hadn't turned her into a daemon, and it hadn't taken away what really made her human.

* * *

Those were the thoughts that accompanied Piotr as he and the other X-men faded from the world of Limbo, to reappear just outside the Xavier Institute, a mere twelve hours after they'd left, even though to them, it had seemed like a day and a half. The thoughts were hardly pleasing, or really, very comforting, but they were the best thoughts he could conjure up after all the time he'd spent in Limbo. What is the real measure of a human being? What does it take to crush the innocence of a person? Is it even possible to completely destroy a person's better side, no matter what kind of life or living situation you put them in? Of course, the questions that really mattered were questions of redemption; the importance of good character, the scarcity of true wisdom, and yet, how essential it was. In the end, and perhaps most importantly, the faithfulness of friends and family; to travel through even the most horrifying and hopeless situations to protect someone just because you care about them was absolutely essential, Piotr decided. Nothing could be closer to the very core of what it meant to be human. It was the one thing that no daemon had; the chance to toss aside simple, cold control, in favor of loving devotion.

For nearly a week, Piotr had to try to comfort himself with those thoughts, as the other X-men set to work making disguises, developing protocols and code names, repairing the plane they'd gotten from the Braddock family, and generally trying to pretend that their trip to Limbo hadn't even occurred. More than once, they encouraged Piotr to try to lose himself in the work at well, as if forgetting what had happened to his long lost sister was the simplest thing in the world. If nothing else, the decision had been made not to try to use the gemstones again. They were locked away in a vault, hidden in one of the chambers adjoining the Danger Room, just to keep them from being lost or stolen, but all the X-men knew better than to try to make the journey to Limbo again themselves.

At last, however, just over a week and a half after the Limbo incident, as the X-men had taken to calling it in conversation, there was a bright light from just outside of the school on the front grounds, and a short time later, the front doors of the institute unlocked themselves harmlessly, and in through those doors stepped one of the least harmless people in existence, pushing both doors open with her arms.

The X-men arrived on the scene in only a very short time. Kurt, as always, was the first to arrive, and seemed the least pleased by their visitor. Piotr was delighted when he arrived on the scene, but most of the others seemed suspicious of the visitor, especially Ororo, who'd been yanked back and forth from death's door so recently by her.

Illyana was wearing a long, white dress with small gemstones along its skirt, as if to hold it in place. She was wearing low-heeled, white boots under her skirt as well, which made a clapping sound as she walked around with a strong air of authority. The lifestone, it seemed, wasn't around her neck anymore, and she had neither the magic bracelet, nor the large broadaxe that the X-men had seen her carrying during their last encounter. She did, however, have a ring on her left hand; on her third finger, rather than her fourth, which was made of something that looked a lot like steel. There was also a large, red gemstone in the ring, with the letter "S" in flames apparently carved into the gem from the inside. Illyana's hair had been left to hang loosely around her shoulders, and her blue eyes had begun to regain some measure of their old curiosity, even though that curiosity seemed to be laced with suspicion.

"Hello again, brother." Illyana said. She seemed to be grinning again, although her words themselves sounded frosty, "Most of Limbo seems to be behaving itself, at present, so I decided the time was right to spend some time in my home world again. I wish to know you all, and the world that you live in, so that I'll be better prepared to make my decisions about all of this in the future. May I share in your sanctuary, brother?"

Piotr felt like reacting quickly, but Illyana was simply too dangerous to make snap judgments about. In a moment, he'd opened his mind to Professor Xavier, who was approaching from his office already. Xavier had shared in Piotr's memories of his trip to Limbo, and seen what had happened to his sister, and when he learned that she was at his front door, he felt deeply worried. Nonetheless, Xavier had always been an optimist, and if there was a chance that Illyana might learn human values by living among other young mutants, he couldn't just turn her away. Even if there wasn't a chance, it was probably best to keep her close, and in either case, the worst thing that he could have done would have been to refuse her; teaching her that people are not accepting or merciful. Silently, Xavier gave his consent.

"My home is your home, my dear Illyana." Piotr said with a smile, "Although, there are a few guidelines that are followed by all who stay under this roof..."

"You'd rather I didn't kill any of your friends." Illyana replied, her grin almost threatening to become a smile as she spoke, "Understandable... and acceptable."

The others were still somewhat nervous, but a bit reassured. Maybe, Piotr thought, Illyana's world view really could be turned around, in time. Kurt, however, still frowned deeply as the daemon queen left, thinking in the silence of his heart "God help us all."

* * *

Illyana was still grinning as she closed the door to the room that she'd been given. It was a kind gesture, and so, it was more than she'd expected after so many years of never once benefiting from an act of kindness. Still, like all basic rooms at the Xavier Institute, the place was a little bare. Piotr had explained that it was up to the students to decide how they decorated their own rooms. That was fine by Illyana. Ever since she'd first had a room to call her own, she'd willingly accepted the burden of decorating it.

Quickly, Illyana began opening more gleaming teleportation portals, just above the floor of her room, and from her treasure rooms in Limbo came curtains, carpeting, sculptures of great warriors, and everything else she needed to decorate her room with. She'd just finished moving three statues into place around her bed, and attaching small gem-holders to the bed knobs, when she spoke without turning to look around.

"If your concern is for your precious mankind, I'm actually quite close to deciding that I want to do right by my own people."

"You have done much wrong already." came Kurt's reply from the shadows near the ceiling.

"Wrong is all that can be done in Limbo." Illyana replied, "When life is a jungle, and all people are wild animals, you learn very quickly that one either kills, or is killed. If I had not killed in my own defense, I would have died very messily."

"The bible has much to say about the path that you chose." Kurt replied, "It says that those who honor themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be honored. Had you merely struggled for your own survival alone, you might have been harder for us to find in Limbo, but you would not have begun accumulating power for your own personal benefit."

"If I hadn't risen in Belasco's ranks so far, and so quickly, he would have used my powers to invade your world, and Earth would now be an outpost of Limbo." Illyana replied with something that looked like scorn, "If you truly find such fault with the efforts that I made in acquiring power for myself, perhaps you should remember that I have already done more to preserve the planet Earth from destruction than you have."

Kurt thought for a moment of bringing up Kevin McTaggert, but he didn't like the idea of alerting Illyana to the identity of one of the most powerful mutants in the world, just in case she was still being insincere, as he suspected. Instead, Kurt decided to make his point, without really telling her anything.

"I do not know if you remember how to love and be loved, Illyana," Kurt said grimly, "but you must remember how to trust and be trusted. No army can exist, unless its soldiers are trustworthy. I think you and I both understand what it means to be a soldier; to face the enemy, and know that your life is at stake if you fail, or if you're too slow to deliver the final blow. Sometimes, that blow must even be a killing blow. If you understand both trust and killing, as I think you do, then what I'm about to say should make perfect sense to you. Piotr trusts you. He trusts you a great deal, because he is your brother. If I find out that you have betrayed his trust, I will do everything in my power to kill you."

Then, Kurt was gone in a puff of smoke, and Illyana just continued grinning as she lay down on her bed, quite ready to put off the rest of the redecorating, until the following day. The scent of well-founded mistrust was in the air, and it smelled just like home.

* * *

In moments, Kurt was in Xavier's office again, however. He'd received the mental summons just a moment before from the professor, telling him that there was a problem that needed the attention of the X-men. The Professor had sounded very disappointed when he'd said that, as if, in part, he didn't really want the problem solved, but still, Kurt would have to worry about that later.

For once, it seemed that Kurt had been the last to arrive, appearing just after Jubilation had entered the room, still dressed in her pajamas. The others were there already, looking curious and deeply interested as the Professor spoke.

"I don't like to put something like this on you all so late in the evening, but I'm afraid that Magneto has done something terrible."

"Magneto?" Scott asked, sounding intrigued, "You mean your old friend?"

"Yes." the professor replied, "He's just contacted me by phone. You see... Magneto is a different sort of man; a true pessimist of the worst kind. Like myself, he wishes to establish a safe, peaceful relationship between the human race and mutants, but unlike me, he does not believe that humans will listen to reason. I've known for quite some time that he was making plans to strike against the humans by force; to conquer the human race, and administrate the acceptance of mutantkind, but I didn't want to fight him if I didn't have to."

"Because he's your friend?" Bobby asked, curious, but seeming to understand the situation somewhat.

"He is my friend, and a very bitter man as well." Xavier replied, "He has reasons for being bitter, but he is not truly evil. I've been trying to convince him to attempt a peaceful solution to the delicate relationship between humans and mutants, but he's fully convinced that he is right, and he hasn't listened to me. As of right now, Magneto has used his mutant powers to seize control of an air force base in central Nevada, and he's threatening to use its weapons to attack several major US cities, unless the United States begins to recognize the plight of mutants held captive in other nations, and severs its diplomatic ties with any such nations at once. I can almost guarantee that the United States government won't respond well to his demands. Unless something is done soon, future history books may associate mutants primarily with terrorism."

"You want us to accept his invitation, go there and stop him." Scott concluded at once, at which point, most of the people in the room turned to look at him in slight surprise.

"Yes, I do." Xavier replied, "Magneto means well, but I'm afraid that he may be forever destroying any chance that mutants have of establishing a peaceful equilibrium with the rest of humanity. This won't be easy, of course. Magneto has the power to control the shape and position of magnetic fields, and alter any type of metallic substances to his will, and I'm afraid he'll have had a great deal more experience in the use of his powers than anyone here, except perhaps Logan, but if you can stop him, and return the base into the hands of the Air Force, that would be the best possible outcome."

"Right." Scott said, followed by an "Alright" from several others, among them Ororo and Piotr. Kurt seemed to have responded by unbuckling the sword from his back, and letting it fall to the floor with a clang.

"Just one problem, though..." Bobby piped up, "I've never done this before. I mean, obviously I've never... Well, you know. It's the first mission since we finished making all those plans."

"Yes..." Professor Xavier replied, "We haven't had time for any emergency drills, have we? Well, Jean knows what needs to be done. Follow her to the basement's south end, and she'll show you what the procedure is."

The X-men left the office quickly after that, except for Logan. He'd sensed that Xavier wanted him to stay for a moment longer, to discuss something of grave importance.

* * *

"You're wasting my time again, general." Magneto said into the telephone, "I'm not a man to be trifled with."

"Your demands don't make any sense!" the general exclaimed into the phone, "I mean, if we don't close trade to countries that oppress women and children, why would we treat mutants any differently?"

"It is the laws and policies of this country that make no sense, general." Magneto replied angrily, "We should close trade to all countries that practice oppression of minorities for their own personal enrichment. There is no good reason for associating with people who commit such blatantly evil acts."

"Why single out mutants, then?" the general asked, "Why make this a mutant issue?"

"Because women and children have other protectors." Magneto replied, "I am the only protector of mutantkind."

"Do you really think you can challenge the policies of the entire US government with just a few planes and some missiles?" the general asked, "Come on, Magneto, you're just one man."

"I'll be receiving reinforcements shortly." Magneto said with a smile, as he felt a supersonic airplane approaching the base from the east. Clearly, Xavier had arrived, or at least, sent someone in his place. Magneto quickly hung up the phone, and looked out at the view screens for the security cameras throughout the base, as the jet aircraft landed, truly hoping that the new mutant arrivals, whoever they were, would be willing to take up the mission that he had, and join him in his cause.

However, a few minutes later, Magneto started to lose that hope in disappointment, as the video feed to each of the security cameras blinked out, one by one, showing only a basic, blue pattern in its place. Magneto sighed heavily, and got to his feet. It seemed that Xavier disagreed with his assessment of the situation, just as he had all those years before, and worse, Xavier had chosen to step in and stop him by force. For Magneto, it was a sad development, but he couldn't let his desire for camaraderie get in the way of his good sense. He'd have to defend himself and his cause.

* * *

The fight between the X-men and Magneto raged throughout the base for a while, and in between attacks, counter-attacks, and ducking for cover, some of the X-men had a few seconds to think about what had happened to them in the recent past, and all the choices they'd had to make. Scott spent a moment, at one point, wondering if Illyana's powers might have made the fight simpler, but quickly dismissed the idea. She was too far steeped in violence and carnage already. To encourage her to fight; even alongside the X-men would just be a bad move. She needed some time to get the feel for living in peace again, and learning to love her brother.

Ororo came pretty close, more than once, to being bludgeoned hard by large, sharp pieces of metal. She couldn't help but wonder if maybe she was the most normal of all the X-men, in spite of her tendency to use her mutant power whenever she was awake. After all, she placed enormous value on her own survival, and absolutely hated being in danger, and yet, she continued to take risks, and confront powerful enemies, all for the sake of her friends, and the dream that they believed in.

It was that dream that filled Logan's thoughts in the few times that he managed to get a moment or two where his help wasn't needed. It was what Xavier had wanted to talk about, just before the group had left in the modified stealth jet the Braddocks had given them, and Xavier's words to Logan, as well as his own words back, traveled through his head yet again, as Logan and the other X-men faced their new enemy.

"Logan, is it wrong to ask the X-men to help me to make these changes? Is it wrong to ask for their help in supporting my dream?"

"Don't seem wrong to me, Chuck."

"We formed the X-men to protect one another from harm." Xavier had remembered sadly, "This mission only really exists because I want humans and mutants to be able to live in peace. Is it wrong to ask the X-men to take on missions that don't pertain to our survival directly?"

"You still don't get it, do you Chuck?" Logan asked, "The X-men are fighters. They've gotta be to survive, but if they just focus on that fight to survive, and nothing else, they'll wind up like Illyana; survivalists and nothing else, and they'll all be miserable. You didn't just give 'em another body to protect, Chuck; you gave 'em the one thing Peter's sis never had. You gave 'em something to work towards. You gave 'em hope."

"Hope?" Xavier asked, partially confused by Logan's explanation, and partially worried, "Logan, do you and the X-men believe that there is a hope of establishing a peaceful coexistence between mutants, and the rest of mankind?"

"We're going on this mission, ain't we?" Logan had asked with a smirk, "You figure it out, prof."

So, the professor had thought about it. He'd thought about it for many hours. The X-men believed in the dream of peace. They believed people could solve their problems peacefully, and they truly believed that peace could, and would be established between humans and mutants. All the dream needed was someone to fight for it...

* * *

End

* * *

I had the next several chapters planned out well in advance before I even started writing this. I knew that I wanted them to be about a character who was, to me, one of the most disturbing and twisted characters in all of comics, and who, as a young kid, scared me half to death in both her normal appearances, and especially in her own short-lived series. In the spirit of those old comic books, that inspired such bone-chilling terror and disgust in me, I set about writing the next three issues; Magik Neo.

I knew from the start that I wanted Magik Neo to be a tale of unspeakable horror; a chilling story about lethal threats, war, death, and the corruption of the innocent. In short, I wanted it to be the darkest story that I could write, while still reaffirming basic human values, and reminding me of what it means to be human.

It wasn't until after I'd finished this story that I realized there was a strong chance that no one would want to read it. It was so grim, tragic and disturbing that even I wasn't eager to re-read it once I'd finished it. It was a story that only the most demented and long-suffering of souls could have produced. It could easily twist those who hear it, turning them against their people, if they misinterpret its meaning. If I allowed the story to be released, without first offering a cautionary warning, I would be doing the people of planet Earth a grave injustice. Still, it was a lot of work to write, and I'd rather post it, than not post it, so I am now going to offer you my warning.

Please. If you believe that you have any hope left of seeing the world as a pleasant place in which people can be friendly, nice and loving, do not read these next three chapters. If you are in any danger of succumbing to primal urges, do not read these next three chapters. Indeed, if you are not a well-hardened person, with a strong dedication to doing the right thing, then I implore you not to try to read these next three chapters; especially not at night, or in one sitting. I'll be posting them gradually to help prevent that, as I always do.

If, however, you truly wish to know what little Illyana has suffered, or if you truly wish to understand her for some reason, or if you're just feeling sadistic, then I invite you to join me in my little slice of Hell.

May I be forgiven for what I've written here.

-Bra1n1ac-


	14. Magik Neo 1: Innocence Lost

Magik Neo

Issue 1

"Innocence Lost"

* * *

"Now then..." Doctor Elsa Catanese said as she closed the door behind Illyana Rasputin, "Do you feel comfortable taking a seat?"

"Comfort has nothing to do with it." Illyana replied, "I will take this one."

Illyana was still learning to subdue her powers around the humans, and whatever else Elsa was, she was a human. Elsa seemed genuinely surprised when Illyana took a seat on the room's large armchair, rather than the sofa intended for patients, but she didn't look offended, which was for the best. Elsa seated herself in the middle of the sofa, trying to get comfortable with having so much room. It was rare that patients took her chair on impulse.

"Now we will speak, Doctor." Illyana said, "My brother has informed me that you are a master, capable of training me in the art of behaving like a human. Since I mean to spend some time here, that is, I feel, a useful skill. Let us begin."

Elsa was captivated by Illyana's strange patterns of speech, and the extremely stern look in her eyes at all times, particularly when she spoke. They were all the signs and more of a person who'd experienced unspeakable horror.

"Of course..." Elsa said after a moment, "But first, I'll need to know a little more about you... As much as you can tell me, in fact. Is that alright?"

"No," Illyana replied, "but I'll tell you about my past, if there's truly no other way. However, make no mistake. If you use the knowledge that I'm giving you to betray me..."

"You don't have to be afraid of me." Elsa said, "I won't..."

"You misunderstand." Illyana interrupted the doctor, "I fear no one. However, I have means of dealing with those who betray me; means of which my brother would not approve. Do not betray me, doctor. As long as you keep my confidence, you will have earned my trust; a gift that is not to be taken lightly."

"It's my job to not betray people;" Elsa replied, "not even to their closest friends and family members."

"Satisfactory." Illyana replied, "Now, what information do you need, precisely?"

"Well, let's start with your parents." Elsa said, "Do you remember them? What were they like?"

"My mother was named Alexandra Rasputin." Illyana said, "She was very kind and generous to others, with long, black hair that hung around her shoulders. Mine was the only instance of blond hair in our family. Mother was the merciful one, although she knew much of justice as a human rhetoric."

"What about your father?"

"Father's name was Nikolai. He had short, black hair and a mustache. His was the greater voice of authority when sin had been committed, and someone deserved to be punished for what they'd done. Nearly always, the punishments were mere chores. There was never any shortage of work to be done on our farm."

"I heard that you had two brothers as well."

"Yes. Mikhail was a clever one; crafty and cunning, always thinking up new ways to accomplish the needed work. In time, he left to become a detective. I believe him to be dead, at the moment, killed by one of the criminals he pursued. My other brother is Piotr, stronger than any ox. Without his great strength, our farm would never have survived. He seemed, back then, like a wondrous miracle to us all."

"You say that he seemed wondrous..." Elsa said, for a moment forgetting that it was a teenage girl she was talking to, rather than an educated adult, "Does that mean you consider him mundane now?"

"Things changed for us." Illyana replied, "For me especially."

"How... did things change?" Elsa asked, and that was when, without a moment's hesitation, Illyana opened her mouth, and began to tell her real story.

* * *

Illyana heard a loud crash in the yard as she finished connecting the hose to the pipes outside the house; one of her many jobs on the farm in the evening. Of course, she knew what the crash meant; Piotr was returning the farm equipment to the barn, which meant that she'd have her chance for some real fun.

Quickly, Illyana rushed out to where she saw a large, jagged mechanism that was typically used for plowing, being carried through the air by the much smaller figure of her brother; his entire body metallic and shining in the light of the setting sun. He carried the enormous piece of equipment over one shoulder, almost effortlessly, though it must have weighed several tons. It was Piotr's special gift. It was what made him different from everyone else.

Soon, Illyana ran up to him, in spite of the broad, metal object being carried around just above the level of her head, and said "Piotr! I did my chores! Give me a ride!"

"One day, you may learn to wait until I've put away the equipment." Piotr said in their native language, "It will be safer when you do."

"You've never dropped it on me, and you never will." Illyana had replied quickly, "Come on! Give me a ride!"

Soon, Piotr had bent a bit lower to the ground, to allow Illyana to climb onto one of his arms, then from there, onto his unoccupied shoulder, where she sat happily, her arms around his neck, fully confident that grabbing him like that; around the throat wouldn't hurt him at all. Piotr Rasputin was stronger than iron.

In only a short time, the equipment was back in the barn, and Illyana was riding back to the house on her brother's shoulder, feeling as happy as she could realistically be. She'd done her work, and dinner would be served soon. Everyone would be there, except...

Illyana swallowed that thought quickly, but then, it had only been a couple of weeks since they'd last heard from her other brother. Mikhail might still arrive at dinner one night, and surprise them.

Illyana knew that her parents were worried, and so was her brother. Nonetheless, they kept up a brave face, even trying their best to have a good time at dinner, whether for her sake, or their own. No matter how big the tragedy, and no matter how harsh the truth, it was always important to remember how to have fun. Even Illyana had her own ways of keeping herself occupied.

Dinner came with much conversation, much of which was about what had been done that day, and what would still need to be done in the future. Nikolai largely served as mediator for the various conversation topics that were brought up, stepping in to end any conversation that seemed to be going nowhere, and helping to direct the various discussions back on track. At last, when Illyana finished her dinner, she got up from her chair and rushed to her room, thanking her parents on the way out. There, she brought out the small, metal box that she kept under her bed and opened it. Inside was Illyana's collection of rare and pretty-looking stones. It was her hobby; finding the rocks that looked most wonderful, and putting them all in that one place. Still, nothing in her collection quite measured up to the one she'd found in the cornfield that day.

Illyana dug the gemstone out of her pocket, and looked at it in delight. It was a thick, red, oblong stone that looked clear enough to be a fine gem, except for the bright glow that emanated from within it. Just as Illyana dropped the stone among her collection, however, she heard a voice in her head; one she didn't recognize.

"Hello? Hello, is anyone there?"

Of course, like any sensible parent who wants their children to become sociable, Illyana's parents had never told her not to talk to strangers, so Illyana replied with a quick "Yes! Yes, I'm here. Where are you?"

"The glowing gem..." came the reply, "That's how you can hear me."

The voice was light, and young-sounding, like a teenage boy. Illyana was a little captivated by it as she replied "Are you trapped in there?"

"I am trapped," the voice replied, "but not inside the gemstone. It's my window to the world. There are four others too... Four other gemstones, just like this one. Did you find them?"

"N-no..." Illyana replied quickly, "Why? Would you be able to come out then?"

"No," the voice replied, "but I would be able to show you my world."

"Who are you?" Illyana asked, no thought of suspicion in her mind; just wonderment and delight at making such a fantastic discovery.

"My name is Belasco." the gemstone voice replied, "I'm the king of a magical realm called Limbo. Everything is so much different here... I wish you could see it for yourself."

"Are there fairies there?" Illyana asked, still amazed.

"Faeries, magic and so much more..." Belasco replied, "There are people with eyes that can discover the true nature of other people, magic spells that can change the simplest of actions to have the most grand results, and even people with large, feathery wings. Limbo is a vast place, with so much to see. I live in a castle that floats in the air, with towers that stretch up over a hundred yards, but I can't visit you in person. I wish you could see it all yourself."

"If I get the other gems..." Illyana asked, "Can I see your magical castle?"

"Yes." was the reply, "Yes, you can."

"Just a moment. Wait. Wait a moment." Illyana said, closing the box, and shoving it back under her bed. In just a few seconds, she'd run out into the cornfield to start searching again, but she'd only found one more of the magic gemstones by bedtime.

"Sorry." Illyana said to the two glowing gems, just before it was time for her to go to sleep, "I'll be able to look more tomorrow, while my brother's working at the store."

"That's alright. There's no hurry." the voice replied, "Just remember that when you do finally see my world with your own eyes, it'll change everything. In time, perhaps your world will become magical as well, like mine."

"I'd like that." Illyana said with a smile as she closed the box, and slid it back under her bed, then drifted off to sleep.

* * *

On the following morning, Illyana's first thoughts were of the gems, and her first words aloud were to Belasco; the magical king. He gave her a little advice, and some helpful encouragement, for which she was grateful, and through the day, she continued her search for the three remaining gems. At last, by mid-afternoon, she'd found the last of the gemstones, and shoved it into her pocket, rushing back to the house in delight. Piotr would still be at the shop when she found the floating castle, but then, if what Belasco had said was true, it might be possible to show them all the magic of Limbo in time. Thrilled and delighted, Illyana put the final gemstone into her box, and watched in amazement as the bright red gems floated into the air over her head, glowing all the brighter as they darted away down the hall. After taking only a second to wonder what was happening and why, Illyana rushed off after them.

At last, the gems seemed to come to rest in a circle on the floor of the bathroom, and Illyana could tell why. Both her room and the hallway were too small for such a large circle to have been formed on the floor. In seconds, however, bright red lines had begun spreading across the floor of the bathroom, connecting the small gems into a symbol unlike any that Illyana had ever seen. That, however, was when something truly horrible happened.

Illyana started to feel the whole bathroom getting warmer, and carefully backed away from the gems, as small flames burst upward from them, growing and growing, combining into a single, enormous blaze. Illyana shuddered, horrified as the roof of the bathroom caught fire, and the blaze spread quickly to the walls and the windows. In moments, fire surrounded her from all sides, except the circle itself, which seemed to have changed, showing an image of a bright red cavern inside of it. As the fires had spread menacingly around Illyana, the flames surrounding the gems and the circle and faded, and they looked almost completely cold. In that instant, Illyana heard Belasco's voice, sounding worried, but as gentle as always, saying "Quickly! Into the portal! I'll take care of the rest! Hurry, before the flames grow too large!"

Illyana's fear drove her then. She knew that if the flames touched her, she'd get burned, and maybe even die. With those thoughts in her head, Illyana Rasputin dove for the portal, and found herself falling...

* * *

Illyana fell and fell, plummeting downward until she hit the ground, fortunately upright. The portal had closed up behind her almost at once, and she'd found herself in a red cavern of some sort, but everything about the cavern was terrifying and spooky. Long, sharp spikes made of stone protruded from both the ceiling and floor along the edges. Thin, red blades of grass lined the floor in the center of the room, and face-like sculptures were all over the cavern's walls, each one contorted into an expression of the most terrible agony. Illyana had never been so frightened in her life, and that was before she felt the bite.

Just as she'd landed amidst the bright red blades of grass, the ones surrounding her opened, revealing thin, black strands on the inside, that immediately went for her legs, digging through her socks easily, to embed themselves in her flesh with a pinching sensation.

Illyana shrieked as she rushed away from the grass, wrenching herself loose from its mosquito-like welcome, to the magical land that she'd worked so hard to reach.

"Welcome to Limbo, my dear." Illyana heard from nearby. The voice definitely belonged to Belasco, but its pitch had lowered since the last time he'd spoken to her, and he no longer spoke with the soft, delicate compassion that she'd heard in his voice before. Even so, the thought that it might all have been a trick at her expense never entered her innocent head.

"Belasco!" she exclaimed, "King Belasco, where are you? I need help! I feel... I feel weak."

"That's the effect of the leechgrass draining away some of your blood. You'll feel tired for several hours, I suppose..."

"Where... Where are you?" Illyana asked, still confused and horrified, "Help me..."

It was only a second before the voice replied again.

"As you wish." the voice said, "I'll help you to survive in Limbo, but to survive, the first thing that you'll need is a change in attitude. You'll need to understand, as a start, the motivation of a lower-class daemon. You'll need to understand the motivation of fear."

As soon as those words reached Illyana's ears, a tall figure stepped from behind a nearby stone spike. He was at least as tall as her father had been, and his skin was bright orange. His eyes looked like they were made of solid gold and he was surrounded by a long, flowing cloak, that reached nearly to his ankles. On his forehead, just over his eyes, were two small horns, and on his face was a wicked grin.

"You don't yet know who I am, little one..." Belasco said as he advanced on her, "But I suspect that you know what I am, and that you should fear me!"

In an instant, Illyana had spun around, fleeing from Belasco along the edges of the room with panicked, exhausted gasps. He seemed to not be chasing after her very quickly, but still, she hurried on her way, steering clear of both the leechgrass and the hideous, wall-mounted faces. Traveling as fast as she could, Illyana quickly reached a tunnel in the rock, leading out of the cavern she'd found herself in, and through a winding path to what, she hoped, would be the outside world. However, just as she neared the end of the tunnel, a long, red cloak appeared within inches of her nose, and she barely had enough time to gasp, as Belasco glared at her.

"You run poorly." Belasco observed, as Illyana tried to flee to the right, colliding sharply with a wall, and prompting a large nosebleed.

"You shouldn't have done that either." Belasco noticed, "Haven't you lost enough blood as it is?"

Despite Belasco's warnings, Illyana couldn't suppress her fear. She knew that behind her was a dead end, so her only hope lay in getting past Belasco somehow. Quickly, she rushed past him on the right, scraping her right arm slightly on a rock as she did so, and suddenly, she discovered to her further horror, that she was perched at the edge of an enormous pit, and the ground was giving way underneath her. Just as the dirt started to slide forward into the pit, however, a large hand grabbed her entire head from above. in an almost crushing grip, lifting her with seemingly no effort at all, and turning her around in mid-air. As expected, the hand had belonged to Belasco, and he continued to hold her there by her head for several seconds, before he spoke again, causing enormous pain to go shooting through her head and neck.

"Well, you seem to have mastered lesson one, at least; fear. Now for your second lesson in Limbo, Illyana Rasputin; don't be such an idiot. Feel the fear flow through you, and be motivated by it, to do great and terrible things. When you've mastered that, there will be nothing that you cannot accomplish, with time and effort."

"For now, however..." Belasco said, lowering Illyana to the ground again, "you aren't ready to learn these lessons from me directly. You must learn them from the smallest, and the least, in the deepest of pits."

Then, in a single, cruel motion, Belasco stamped one foot against the ground, causing a large section of dirt to slide loose from where they were, and into the pit, carrying Illyana with it. She screamed in terror as she was surrounded by the grainy, falling dirt, and Belasco sighed as he heard her scream echoing in the pit.

"Screaming... What a foolish thing to do." he muttered, vanishing once more.

* * *

Illyana's terrified scream continued as she descended into the deep pit, and it only stopped when she and the cold dirt that surrounded her collided with the pit's bottom. It was a painful experience that made her ache all over, but there was so much loose dirt all around her, that she survived without any broken bones. Of course, it never would have occurred to her that such a fall would normally have produced more serious injuries. All Illyana was certain of was that she was hurting, miserable and terrified, and she wanted to just go home more than anything in the world.

Then, the terrified girl realized that the place she'd landed in was slick and slanted, because she was soon sliding uncontrollably in a new direction. She couldn't tell where she was, or where she was headed, because of all the dirt that was rapidly getting in her eyes, but as she slid, she could hear the screeching of a hundred terrible, furious creatures, like enormous bats. At last, Illyana felt the ground underneath her vanish completely, and she was falling again, in a shower of dirt and winged shapes.

The small girl needed several more seconds after her second fall, to get a handle on what was going on. She was almost completely covered in dirt, which seemed to be mostly concealing her from the hundreds of dark, winged monsters that swarmed throughout the new cavern that she'd found herself in.

Illyana was more terrified than ever of that cavern, because there was what looked like smoking water off to one side, and shining lava pools on the other, belching flames onto the surrounding landscape. Aside from the numerous, winged monsters that surrounded Illyana, there was also a group of other creatures, some as tall as a full-grown woman, others much, much larger, which were being driven back by the onslaught of the winged beasts. In just a few moments, the two groups of monsters were fighting with each other viciously, spilling green fluid whenever one of them cut open another with their claws, or with some strange power. She could have gotten up at any moment, Illyana realized, without being noticed, so that was what she did, struggling to her feet, and shrugging off the dirt as she stayed carefully out of sight of the battle-hungry daemons, killing each other within yards of her position. At last, Illyana had managed to get around the fighting daemons, and into another tunnel beyond them, but she was too terrified... too scared... She couldn't have seen anything but her own fears by that point, which may have been why she didn't see where she was going.

* * *

Before long, Illyana had taken a third fall in as many minutes, and the last one had led to a pretty badly-twisted ankle, although she still hadn't broken anything, thanks to the way she'd scrambled for a handhold on the walls of the small pit when she'd fallen down into it. The pit was about three feet across, and several yards deep. It seemed like a safe place to hide from monsters, fire, and most other dangers, although there was one problem that Illyana couldn't just escape, no matter where she went. If and when she got hungry, she needed something to eat, and she hadn't seen anything growing, or being farmed since she'd first arrived in Limbo. It gave her one more thing to be afraid of; one more problem to worry about, and that was the problem that drew the tears from her eyes.

"What the Hell do you think you're doing, you imbecile?" Belasco's voice shouted into Illyana's mind in a single burst, "If you start crying, you're going to get yourself killed!"

However, the voice of the daemon king only drew the tears faster. Soon, Illyana's tears were rolling down her cheeks, as she bawled aloud over her cruel fate. Most of her tears flowed downward along her face and clothes, as the sound of her misery echoed out of the tiny pit she'd found herself in; one of the deepest places in Limbo, but even over the sound of her continual crying, Illyana heard the voice of Belasco, speaking condescendingly to her.

"Alright." he said, "Since you've decided to cry over this, it's time for lesson three. In Limbo, it's never safe to cry."

Just as Belasco said that, one of Illyana's tears hit the ground, and something started happening to it before her very eyes. She watched in horror as that tear seemed to start boiling from within, growing as it did so; swelling up like a huge bubble with water inside, until it was the size of a football. That was when it started changing shape, with sharp protrusions emerging from its sides, indentations forming in its front, and long, thin claws appearing behind it. In just seconds, that one tear had transformed into a transparent, but vicious-looking monster, which seemed very eager to attack Illyana.

"Tear daemons are the lowest and weakest of all the creatures in Limbo," Belasco explained, seemingly from all around the young girl, "even weaker than yourself. Nonetheless, that doesn't mean they're not dangerous. It'll tear you open if you let it."

In only a second, the creature leapt at Illyana, and she had a strong urge to run from it. There was, however, nowhere to run to. The tiny pit she was in was too small and confined, and didn't have anything to crawl under or hide in. Soon, the tear daemon had stuck its claws into her chest, wrenching a fresh scream of pain from her lips, and causing three more tears to fly from her face, and begin their transformation on the ground.

"Careful." Illyana heard Belasco say, "You don't want to have to fight a whole army of these things, do you?"

However, Illyana wasn't at that level yet; she wasn't even ready to consider fighting anyone or anything. Even as four tiny monsters clawed at her stomach, she couldn't bring herself to strike out against them. Her parents had raised her well for a life as a human; she was truly pure and innocent, and as she lost consciousness, the only lesson of Limbo that had penetrated her thoughts was the simplest, most basic one.

"I... I can't cry. I can't ever cry. Not ever."

"What a slow learner this human girl is." Belasco muttered to himself as he watched her fall unconscious, from his place in the Castle of Despair at the center of Limbo, "If she keeps this pace up, she won't even be alive much longer."

* * *

When Illyana finally regained consciousness, she was still in the pit, but for some reason, the monsters that had been attacking her seemed to have vanished. She was feeling horrible pain in her stomach, which still had a thick gash in it, but she knew she needed a bandage of some kind, so she decided that the first step was to get out of the pit. If nothing else, she was through crying.

Fortunately, there were rocks sticking out of the pit's edges, which were useful as hand holds, so after falling a few times, Illyana was finally able to claw her way to the top of that small pit and looked around warily. She still knew very little about Limbo, however, except that there was danger everywhere. Quickly, the young human girl rushed through one of the nearest doors, hoping to find something useful for healing cuts. All she found, however, was a long, dark tunnel, leading to a small light at the end. The tunnel was frigid and foreboding, and Illyana didn't think she'd like what was on the other side, but nonetheless, she pressed on, determined to get out of that terrible place.

Only midway through the tunnel, she heard shouts from the other end, and soon saw a group of monsters approaching her. The tunnel, however, was so bare, that there was nowhere to hide, and soon, they'd spotted her.

"There's another one!" one of the monsters; a tall brute with only one eye exclaimed before she could hide.

In a flash, they were upon her, grabbing her by the shoulders and ankles, and yet, she offered no resistance, and made no effort to kick them, or fight them in any way. She could barely imagine behaving like that.

"Gee, this one's weird." one of the creatures said out of its pig-snout mouth, "Oh, you've gotta be kiddin' me! A stomach gash? Hey, loser! Did you get that from a tear daemon?"

Illyana would have cried as they put her down, but by that point, she knew better, and simply nodded.

"What a wuss." the one-eyed daemon chuckled, "Let's give her to Masira. She knows how to harden up new soldiers."

The monsters all seemed to be nodding to one another, as one of them forced Illyana into the back of a large wagon, and slammed the door shut behind her. She felt very sad still, and very afraid, and of course, she was still in terrible pain, but she knew she had to keep those feelings in check, or they'd only encourage her to start crying again, which was the last thing she needed to do.

She wasn't the only one in the wagon, of course. There were others, but none of them quite looked human. There was a creature that looked a lot like a large wolf, one that resembled a man with the head and feathers of a toucan, and one that looked basically like a human man, except for the bat-like wings protruding from the sides of his head. There was also another girl there, although she seemed to have different kinds of mouths, with razor-sharp teeth, all over her torso. Illyana was afraid of them all, but unless she was badly mistaken, they seemed, when she looked closer, just as scared of her, and of one another. It was because of that brief observation that Illyana eventually found the courage to speak to the scared-looking monsters directly.

"Where are they taking us?" Illyana asked after a few safe moments of hesitation.

"Probably one of the army camps." the being with the beak replied, "They claim that search parties like this one are for gathering soldiers, but I won't be too surprised if they decide to just kill us all instead."

"Army camps?" Illyana asked, confused, "Armies? Is there a war?"

All of the others looked at her in suspicion, and in some cases, disdain, before the wolf-beast replied in a gruff-sounding voice.

"Stupid question." he said, "Half of life is war. All who live in Limbo know that. Either you kill, or you are killed."

For Illyana, it was terrifying news. The idea that war could be constant and never-ending in the realm she'd found herself in had never entered her head before, and she was sorry to have learned that. One by one, every new thing that she learned about Limbo seemed bent on crushing her hopes.

* * *

It was hours before the wagon came to a stop inside a small encampment. There were no buildings there, just tents of various sizes and shapes, designed seemingly to be easy to set up and take down in a hurry. The tents numbered in the hundreds, and they seemed to be segmented from one another by what color they were, as if to define the different sections of the encampment. The wagon had stopped in the section with dull yellow tents, and in moments, its back was opened, and Illyana and the others were herded out into the camp.

One of the monsters that had kidnapped them entered a nearby tent, leaving several of his buddies to watch them, and in moments, he emerged again with a woman following him. The woman was tall, with broad shoulders, bright, purple skin, and pointed ears. She had three scars along one side of her face, and short, black hair on her head, and she was dressed in thick, brown armor.

"These are them." the monster said to the woman. She, in turn, looked the newcomers over with an expression, half of interest, and half of exhaustion, her eyes seeming to widen more than Illyana would have thought possible, whenever she spoke.

"These are the ones, eh? Well, we'll soon see if they have what it takes to survive. Listen up, you newcomers! You belong to the Pronus army now! Each of you's managed to get past the lower-level savaging gangs, so you're all soldiers of a sort, but if you want to survive in Pronus, you'll need to pick up the pace, and pick it up fast. You're going to learn teamwork, strength and skill in this place, or you're going to die."

However, even as the woman said that, she saw the gash in Illyana's stomach, and realized at once just what had made it. Turning on the monster who apparently lead the group of kidnappers, she shouted, "What's the meaning of bringing me this sick, poisoned child? You should have just left her to die in the pits!"

"Begging your pardon, Masira," the monster replied, looking suddenly timid, "but our orders were to bring you anything that crawled out of the lower pits alive. We've just done like we were ordered to."

In a moment, Masira spat angrily on the ground, then said aloud, "I hate having to teach new arrivals how to throw a simple punch. I hate it!"

The monster didn't dare reply. He couldn't have done anything to change what Masira's job was, and she knew that perfectly well. She was just ranting her frustrations away.

"Well, one way or another, you all wound up here." Masira reiterated, "So now that you are here, I may as well teach you a thing or two about how to not get your stomach torn open like an ignoramus."

As Masira said that, she cast Illyana a very dirty look, and snapped her fingers, causing one of the nearby guards to stand at attention next to her.

"Lossom is needed right this minute. This little fool tried to hug a tear daemon or something."

The guard bowed shortly, and was off across the encampment to another section. Illyana was too scared to speak as Masira barked aloud to the five of them "You're all coming with me into the training tent. Fall in behind me!"

Masira continued to curse unpleasantly as she led the new arrivals through the camp, into another tent, where a daemon with large, thick arms topped with what looked like needles stood. Along the edges of his arms were tiny slits, that seemed to open and close like gills, revealing hollow pockets inside. The sight of him terrified Illyana, particularly once she realized some part of what was about to happen.

"Cure the idiot, Lossom." Masira just said, and in a moment, he'd lunged forward, driving one of his needles right into the gash in Illyana's stomach. She screamed as the pain grew worse, and for the first time, tried to struggle against her attacker, squirming around as best she could, but Lossom was too skilled to be shaken so easily, and in moments, he pulled the needle back out of her flesh, and a green light shot out from his eyes, bathing her in some form of energy. In moments, the pain was gone.

"Now, you learn to throw a good punch once in a while, and I won't have to do that again." Lossom said, his arm bulging even more than before.

"I... I don't get it..." Illyana muttered, sitting up as she realized in amazement that all of the scrapes, cuts and bruises she'd suffered since entering Limbo had vanished, including the gash in her stomach, "What did you just do?"

"Took these little parasites out of you." Lossom replied as the slit in his arm opened, dislodging its contents; a thick, bag-like enclosure, containing four very angry tear daemons.

"Those... those were inside of me?" Illyana asked, feeling about ready to vomit from the mere thought.

"Just like those who cry over their problems instead of taking action," Masira said, stepping towards Illyana, and waving Lossom back again, "tear daemons are miserable little parasites that get under your skin, and need to be rooted out for the protection of any other living things in the area. If they'd stayed inside of you, they'd eventually have consumed you from within, and multiplied inside your body."

"I... I don't... I mean..." Illyana was speechless for a moment, but when she could finally manage words again, she said "It's just that someone told me they were weak."

In response, Masira proceeded to step hard on the trapped daemons several times, and every time she stepped on one, it seemed to disintegrate into a puddle, splashing throughout the enclosure, until all that was left was a bag of water.

"They are weak if you hit them," Masira explained sternly, turning away from the daemons she'd just killed, "but even the weakest animal can do a lot of damage if you never strike back. It was foolish of you to just let them attack you."

Illyana had been sad and afraid since she'd first entered Limbo, but the sight of Masira killing those trapped daemons, and looking at her with disdain in her eyes made her feel even sadder. Finally, she looked up at Masira and asked "Did you have to kill them?"

The question brought a fresh fury into Masira's face, as she rushed forward and grabbed Illyana, slamming her face hard against the ground, and causing fresh blood to emerge from her nose and mouth.

"You idiot! You fool!" Masira exclaimed as Illyana lay on the ground at her feet, "You know nothing of life! Look around you! Suffering, death, and combat surround you on every side! This is life! Do not dispute that, ever, and never question me again, or I will kill you where you lay!"

In just a moment more, Masira had yanked Illyana back to her feet, and continued shouting, not merely at her, but at everyone in the room.

"If any of you have any further doubts about the way that we do things, you can test the strength of those doubts as you watch your fellow soldiers die around you! You're all going to learn how to fight for your lives, whether you like it or not!"

Then, Illyana was tossed in among the daemons she'd arrived with, although they all looked at her with suspicion. She, they all thought, was just a coward, and a coward can never be a warrior.

* * *

For the next week, Illyana lived among the daemons of that camp. She ate the absolutely vile food that the daemons ate, slept on the ground when she wasn't being bothered by the other daemons, and the rest of the time, they trained her in everything from tracking game, to sprinting huge distances, to the martial arts. However, Illyana was a girl raised in the human world, by idealistic, human parents. She saw no reason at all why the daemons should have to fight and kill each other in the way that they did, and her heart wasn't in the training. Short, small-scale battles with enemy spies occurred during her training on the outskirts of the encampment, but she was never involved in those fights, and it was never her job to kill. Given what she later learned about the nature of Limbo's wars, Illyana would one day find it surprising that a full-scale fight with another army took so long to occur.

When the attack came down, it wasn't without warning. The daemons guarding the edges of the army encampment sounded the alert as soon as the enemy army was sighted, and soon, daemons all across camp were grabbing their weapons and warming up, in preparation for war.

Illyana had found, all too soon, that despite her relative inexperience, and (to some) insensible aversion to violence, she was surrounded by bloodshed and carnage. It was the most horrible thing she'd ever witnessed up to that point; even worse than the daemons that had surrounded her when she'd first arrived, even worse than what the leechgrass and tear daemons had tried to do to her, and she shivered with fear as the enemy lashed out with their strangely-shaped bodies, using inhuman power to tear each other to shreds. Every once in a while, one of them would even attack another from a distance using fire, electricity, or some other kind of strange ability. Though Illyana still had no idea of the true nature of such magic spells, it didn't take her long to start recognizing them as such.

It was in that moment, that Illyana was forced to confront a simple truth about herself, and yet, one that neither she nor Masira had paid heed to. You can train a girl to fight, you can show her death and blood up close, you can place her in a battlefield, full of the dead, dying, and those soon to die, but to really make someone a warrior requires something more than that.

Illyana had been shoved into battle with a spade in one hand, alongside the other new arrivals at the Pronus camp, and while the daemon fighters who'd trained with her lashed out at the enemy with bloodthirsty ferocity, Illyana froze in her tracks, her arms losing all their strength, and lowering the spade she carried in both hands. To her left, the wolf beast perished in a blast of flame, and to her right, the girl with all the mouths found herself being impaled from multiple sides, but as the daemons died all around her, Illyana merely cringed in fear. At last, three large, powerful-looking daemons all turned and bore down on her at once, and Illyana shrieked, dropping her spade completely, and putting her hands over her head, as she flattened against the ground. She didn't know the first thing about the will to kill another being, because that was a desire she'd never had.

At the last second, however, there was a clang of powerful metal, and when Illyana looked up, there was Masira, standing in front of her, slicing apart the attackers with a blade much larger than her arm.

"Fight, you worthless scum!" Masira exclaimed to Illyana, "Fight!"

Illyana, however, was too horrified by what she was seeing, even as Masira fought for her life, and in a moment, a long spade was sticking out of the daemon's side.

It felt like an eternity that Illyana Rasputin watched, as Masira fell to the ground, her deep green blood splattering on her spade and face. Had she cared about Illyana? Was she merely trying to save every soldier she could? Did the idea of her training going to waste drive her to self-sacrifice, or had Masira truly thought that she was invincible? She couldn't have answered any of those questions, as her former mentor fell. She'd killed two enemies, only to be slain by the third.

Illyana saw the bodies of the dead falling away from the blades of the warriors. She saw the dead enemies and soldiers of the Pronus Army collapsing in pieces, and the bodies of those she'd trained with littering the ground, and Masira too had fallen to the ground, furious and alone. Illyana had been told, again and again by her parents; "Never get in fights. Never hurt anyone," and yet, as Masira fell forward, the life leaving her body, Illyana felt something worse than any injury; she felt that she'd betrayed someone who'd looked out for her. It was her fault that Masira had died, because she could have acted, and she hadn't.

In that moment, Illyana felt a new feeling welling up within herself; a feeling that caused her to lift her spade once more, and with a roar of fury, drive it through the chest of the daemon who'd struck Masira down. Then, as he himself fell to lay on the battlefield, even as the fighting began to abate, Illyana left the spade, and her first victim where they lay, and fled from that place of blood and fury.

* * *

"Why are you running?" the voice of Belasco echoed in Illyana's head, "You should rejoice over your victory."

"No!" Illyana thought back, though she was too out of breath from her long sprint to say it aloud, "No, I... I can't."

As it turned out, the time that Illyana spent fleeing from the field of battle was time well spent. When the fight was over, there was almost nothing left of either army, and Illyana was left to her thoughts and her feelings. It was almost three hours after the battle, however, before the cobwebs cleared away, and Illyana began, for the first time since she'd entered Limbo, to start thinking methodically about her situation. It was obvious to her that all of that violence and suffering was meaningless and horrible, and it was just as obvious that no matter how meaningless the violence was, she was caught up in it. Denial wouldn't save her from the reality of her situation. It was a war from which no one in Limbo could abstain or escape.

Over the five hours that followed that realization, Illyana continued to think about her situation, and what she could do to save herself. It was obvious that simple survival alone would be a massive struggle in Limbo, and just stopping herself from crying wasn't going to be enough. She needed a reasonably safe place to sleep, food to eat, and, the sharp chill in the air reminded her, she needed some source of warmth. Illyana hadn't seen the light of the sun since she'd first arrived in that terrible world.

She knew that she couldn't depend on Belasco to send her back home. In fact, she expected to never find her way back, in which case Limbo would be her new home for as long as she lived. It was a cold world, violent and unloving, but that wasn't her doing, nor did in hinge on any choice of hers. The only decision that really mattered was the decision to take part in the struggle to survive.

Soon, Illyana had taken what food she could carry from the dead army's food stores, and loaded it into a large bag that seemed to have been made from the skin of some unfortunate creature. With that bag slung over one shoulder, she returned once more to the battlefield, to find the body of Masira, already falling into decay. Not far off lay Masira's sword. It was an enormous, strong blade, though covered in the green blood of many daemons. Illyana had no idea what it had been used for before that point, or how many daemons it had killed; only that it was one of the longest swords she'd ever seen, and looked like a most lethal weapon. Quickly, she gripped the hilt in both hands, though she found, in mere moments that it was too heavy to even lift. Masira must have been extremely powerful to wield a sword like that one so easily... and yet...

"And yet, she was still killed by other daemons..." Illyana said aloud, suddenly realizing the magnitude of the obstacles that she faced, "I'll need to be strong enough to wield this sword effortlessly... and then I'll need to be even stronger."

Without another world, Illyana Rasputin headed off into the wilderness, dragging the sword behind her as she moved, and carrying the bag of food over one shoulder.

* * *

It was almost a week before Illyana found that the food in her bag was no longer safe to eat. It had begun to spoil, and was turning a dull green. She thought, for a moment, about just throwing it away. It was what would have been done to food like that in her old world, but having spent nearly two weeks in Limbo, Illyana had begun to realize the extent to which daemons needed to go, just to survive. Over the course of the last week, she'd spent nearly all of her time struggling with the sword, until at last, by a great effort, she'd managed to lift it just a little bit. The feat had validated her a little in all the time she'd spent making the attempt, but none of it would mean a thing if she starved to death.

Starvation was a very big threat for Illyana at that point. It hung over her, threatening to destroy her in only a few days. Unfortunately, Illyana wasn't sure what the daemons had used for food. She wished, and not for the last time, that she could have used the same ability that Lossom had to cure diseases and injuries. It would have taken so much of the risk out of survival. Still, she had to make do with what she had, for the time being, which meant finding food in the wild somehow. She certainly couldn't go into an army camp yet. She knew she wasn't ready to fight in a war, or defeat other daemons in battle, except by surprising them as she had Masira's killer. Being able to barely lift a sword wasn't the same thing as knowing how to wield it, which meant that her best bet was wilderness survival for the moment.

Illyana had to wrestle with her memories for almost an hour before she recalled some advice that her mother had once given her about cooking.

"I stay away from blood, and treat it like it's poisonous. If the meat looks like it still has blood in it, I always keep cooking..."

Illyana was grateful for that little tip. It gave her some idea of what to do next.

* * *

Within five hours, Illyana had scouted out the lay of the land, until she knew where all of the nearest volcanic pools and hot springs were. The hot springs were a prime source of fresh, if warm water, and the volcanic pools provided the best and most plentiful source of heat in Limbo. She knew she'd need access to both, if she wanted to survive.

It seemed that virtually no fruits grew in the section of Limbo where Illyana found herself, not that she would have been in a hurry to eat them after having seen what the leechgrass did. Therefore, Illyana's only remaining option lay in finding and killing an animal of some kind.

As luck would have it, animals were plentiful in Limbo. They seemed to multiply alarmingly, which enabled daemons to feed off them on a regular basis, despite the fact that vast armies of daemons also existed. The one that Illyana lured to her location with the smell of her spoiled food was also fairly large and slow. It was about the size of a horse, and had sharp antlers like a stag, as well as a sharp-toothed snout, and a great deal of fur, but it seemed to move more like an elephant, or tortoise than anything that could have galloped. Illyana saw that it couldn't escape her, although she didn't like the thought of taking on all of those horns, teeth and hooves. The objective, therefore, would be to sneak up on it, and attack from behind, which meant lifting the sword again.

Getting behind the creature without being noticed was the easy part. The hard part would be approaching it more closely, to make her attack. Illyana could barely lift the sword as it was, and to sneak up on the beast, she'd need to keep it in the air, while still trying to keep her footsteps from being heard. A more experienced hunter might have realized what a fool's errand it was, but Illyana only knew that she needed to survive, which meant that she had to attack.

Struggling to balance the sword in the air, while still remaining silent, Illyana advanced towards the creature, but it was all she could do to just hold that blade, and when the time came to swing it, the beast seemed to notice her. She wasn't sure why the creature had detected her presence as she'd started to swing the blade. It could have been for any number of reasons, but in moments, it had spun around, entangling the sword in its horns, and knocking it away to the side. The creature's sharp horns had put another small cut in the back of Illyana's hand, as the sword fell to the ground with a clang not far off, but she wasn't the only one that had suffered damage from the short exchange. One of the beasts antlers had been cut clean off by the sharp edge of the blade, and had fallen to the other side on the ground. Even as the monster snapped at Illyana with its jaws, she knew that she needed to modify her plan a bit. It seemed that a straightforward attack wouldn't be sufficient; at least not with the weapon she'd chosen to wield. In only a moment, Illyana dove forward, under the jaws and stomach of her enemy, emerging behind it, and pulling hard on its tail. The creature bellowed hard, and stamped around, trying its best to turn and skewer Illyana with its horns, but it just couldn't get to her, and as it turned to the left, Illyana's other hand reached back, and seized the discarded antler that had fallen to the ground.

In seconds more, Illyana Rasputin had her new weapon; a great deal lighter than the old one, and had let go of the creature's tail. When it turned to face her again, it seemed disturbed by the horn that she held in one hand, but it still wasn't afraid of her, and attacked ferociously with its jaws. It was the first true sparring match that Illyana had ever experienced, but she adapted quickly to her opponent's attacks, knocking its jaws aside with her makeshift sword. She'd done that three times, when it lunged violently at her, and she had to dive to one side to avoid it. However, she was just a little faster in recovering from the rapid exchange than the beast was, and in a flash, she'd jabbed the antler into the creature's side.

The animal howled in agony as Illyana defiantly hung onto the antler, driving it deeper and deeper into the beast, twisting and turning it, intent upon doing as much damage to the creature's insides as possible. If she wanted to eat, the beast had to die. It was step one.

The creature bucked and roared, gushing green goop as it wore itself out. It was too late for it, however. Soon, it just collapsed forward, falling to the ground in a heap, as it breathed its last.

The whole affair had made Illyana feel terrible. She hated the very idea of anything dying because of her, and yet... and yet she'd had no other choice. In just a few moments, Illyana had moved to lift her sword again. It was time to finish the hard work needed for survival.

Within a few hours, Illyana had dragged her sword to the edge of one of the lava pits, skewering a large chunk of meat on one end, then had embedded the blade's hilt deep in the sand, and aimed the other end towards the molten rock, being careful not to touch its sharp edge. It wasn't exactly the easiest means of cooking in existence, but the heat was causing the blood and fat of the meat to boil away, and the meat was starting to turn brown on the bottom. She would, Illyana realized, have to cook it on a number of sides, before it was safe to eat, but at least she wouldn't go hungry for a few more days; maybe even a week.

Of course, the very idea of hunting a Limbo beast every week for food horrified Illyana, but she'd already made the important choice in that regard. Illyana would do what it took to survive.

"...And that" Belasco thought to himself as he listened in on her thoughts from the top floors of the Castle of Despair, "is exactly the decision I most needed her to make. She could still get herself killed, of course, but I think that when the time comes, she might even be useful."

* * *

"I'm telling you, it's the perfect spot to set up. There hasn't been a major force here since that big battle a couple years ago" Grios said to Lars as they passed a spot with four lava pits, and two hot springs within a mile of each other. Grios was a large, powerful-looking daemon with fur all over his body, and sharp fangs and claws. He was eight feet tall and powerfully-built. His companion Lars, by contrast, had six legs and two arms, like a man with the lower body of an ant. They each had their own special powers and skills, but what they were about to find in that section of the wilderness was something that they weren't ready for.

"It's like I told you before." Lars replied to Grios, "If nobody's set up camp here in two years, there has to be a reason for that. I don't even thing we ought to be here. I'd rather just scout the place quick, and hurry back before we both find out what..."

But Lars' statement would never be finished, because with a glint of metal, the two halves of his body had separated from one another. He was dead instantly.

Grios wasn't exactly bright, but he knew when to be afraid. In seconds, there was a blur of motion, and there stood a little blond girl before him, looking defiantly at the much larger daemon. Lars' death had been caused by a large sword, being thrown through the air at him in a whirling motion. The sword, having done its work, had embedded itself in the ground deeply just behind Lars' corpse, and it seemed that the girl who faced Grios just then had been pursuing it. In doing so, she'd shown him speed that was frankly terrifying, and the next moment, when she yanked the huge blade out of the ground with seemingly no effort at all, he recognized that her strength had also reached terrifying levels. The sword was several times the length of the arm she wielded it with, and yet, she was whipping it around like a kitchen knife, with both power and skill that left the monstrous Grios speechless.

"W-wait!" Grios exclaimed, close to panic, "I'll do whatever you say! Just don't hurt me!"

However, it was too late for him. He'd seen his friend cut down, and he knew her location. Illyana wasn't going to let him leave her territory alive, unless he truly earned it the Limbo way.

"If you want to live, defeat me." Illyana said, swinging her blade in a wide arc.

* * *

"Yes," Belasco thought, with a smile on his face as he observed Illyana's progress, "That's a start. If she keeps improving at this pace, the invasion of Earth may even happen ahead of schedule."

* * *

To Be Continued...

* * *

Well, there you go. I guess now, you probably realize why I warned you about this part of the story. Why write this, however? Why bring it into the world? Well... The truth is, for me... This is the world. I kid you not. As a person, I have never understood why people need to compete with, and against each other. Wherever I see competition in my own life, it always seems like the source of ruthlessness, and so my realizations of how things ought to be are slammed over and over again into the brick wall of the way things are. Illyana's journey is only a more extreme version of the culture shock that I have, in the past, felt as a result of that. I've more than once felt as if I were, in fact, being shoved into a world full of ruthless, wicked, selfish daemons when I wake up in the morning. Frankly, I don't know whether to hope that feeling is as common in others as it is in me, or whether to hope that no one else feels quite the way I do.

However, I do hope that this tale isn't turning you too badly against me, the Neoverse, or, God forbid, mankind. If it is... If you have no desire to finish it... Well, you can skip the rest of Magik Neo if you'd like to. You won't offend me.

-Bra1n1ac-


	15. Magik Neo 2: Lessons in Magic

Magik Neo

Issue 2

"Lessons in Magic"

* * *

Elsa was stunned and worried as she listened to Illyana's story. It was hard to believe that a teenage girl her age could come up with something so detailed and completely well-envisioned, and yet, her story wasn't finished yet. For a moment, Elsa wondered if she should be indulging Illyana's delusions by continuing to listen, but looking at the young girl, she could see that any sign, on Elsa's part, of refusing the listen to the rest of the tale would be interpreted by her as mere weakness.

"Alright..." Elsa said sadly, "What happened after you became a powerful warrior?"

Illyana smiled, licking her lips a little, as she replied, "War."

* * *

Illyana knew that after more than two years spent living in the wilderness of Limbo, testing herself against both wild animals and daemon spies, she was turning into a true warrior, and had become, if anything, even more powerful than her former mentor Masira, learning to wield the giant blade in ways that she'd never seen Masira use. When she'd killed two spies one day, and one of them had begged her for his survival, it had triggered something inside of her; a realization, or a moment of lucidity that she'd been waiting for. She had a feeling that she was ready to face her past.

What had happened to Masira, and Illyana's own inability to defend her at the time had been a source of misery to her for quite a while. She'd been thinking over what happened since then, turning it over in her thoughts every chance she got, and yet, it had accomplished nothing, except to convince her of what a foolish coward she'd been. Masira had been right to call her so many names. She'd needed a warrior by her side, and Illyana hadn't been that warrior.

"But I can be now." Illyana thought, "This whole time, I've been so afraid that I wasn't worthy to be a warrior, but now I can set those doubts to rest. I know how to fight in my own defense, and in defense of my territory. All I need now is to fight in a war again."

Quickly, Illyana began to move across the sprawling, blood-stained plains of Limbo to the nearest actual army camp.

* * *

On the way there, Illyana made the important decision not to kill any of the guards until they attacked her first. It wasn't a choice that was made for the purpose of being fair; the last two years had taught her that fairness was neither common, nor rewarded in Limbo. She'd made that choice because she didn't want to seem like a spy, or an invader into the army's territory. She didn't want to fight that whole army by herself, she wanted to join their ranks.

The moment Illyana emerged over the hillside, dressed all in animal skins, with another beast's skin wrapped around the blade of her sword several times, she drew the attention of the guards. She carried the large, heavy sword across her shoulders like a massive club, and wrapped up as it was, it was more club-like than ever. Quickly, guards surrounded her, carrying light spades as they moved to her location. She made no aggressive moves, but said nothing, waiting for the daemon guards to decide whether they wanted to invite her in, or kill her.

Of course, the answer to that question didn't really surprise Illyana. Without a word, one guard soon lunged forward with his spade, but in a flash, Illyana was standing behind him, and he fell forward, an enormous bruise in his back.

The other guards, having seen that, seemed to think better of attacking Illyana for at least a little while, and finally, once of them, who was blue, with horns like a ram, spoke.

"Why do you come here? Are you a servant of the enemy?"

"I'm a servant of no one right now." Illyana had replied icily, "Who's your enemy?"

"Does it matter?" the guard asked, "We fight others, and they fight us. Questions of who is on which side mean nothing."

"How can you accomplish anything with that kind of attitude?" Illyana wondered aloud.

"We train." the guard replied, "That is our accomplishment. It's all that we really need to do. You're so strong, that you must realize that."

"So strength is truly all that matters to you." Illyana realized at last, "There is no currency in Limbo, except power."

Of course, Illyana had suspected that for quite some time, but she'd had so little recent contact with the armies of Limbo, that she hadn't been completely sure. That realization had changed a few things about her thoughts, and her approach to war from that point on, but it was only natural. In time, all who live in Limbo come to realize that power is an end unto itself; hard to acquire, but immeasurably valuable.

"That... makes sense." Illyana said at last, "In fact, I suppose it is a sort of power that I came here to acquire; the power to live free of doubt in my own courage and strength. I've joined an army before, but I'd like to do it one more time."

The guards still looked suspicious, but one of them hurried to reply.

"There's always room in the Gorath army for newcomers with combat skills, but how can we be certain that we can trust you?"

"You can't trust me." Illyana simply replied, "That's what Limbo is all about."

The guard just looked at her for a few more moments, then sighed, and said "Very well, but before you join, you must train under Dorgan. He supervises the training of all new arrivals. Perhaps you think that you don't need the training, but I still have many suspicions about you."

Illyana just smirked as she was lead into the Gorath army camp. She was a member of an army once again, and one step closer to the validation she wanted.

* * *

Within minutes, Illyana was inside one of the Gorath army's training tents, surrounded by larger, but presumably less-experienced daemons, and one battle-hardened veteran at the front of the tent, glaring at them all. The veteran daemon was a lizard-man with six limbs, four of which were legs, and a long, lizard-like tail behind him. His head resembled the scaly face of an iguana, and there was a large, ugly fin along his back. He also had three scars on his body, along various points.

"Well?" the veteran; apparently Dorgan asked, "You must know enough by now to realize that the source of all strength is adversity, so start sparring."

"Wh-what's sparring?" a young, female daemon asked, and in response, Dorgan's tail whipped around, knocking her to the floor with a crash. Illyana winced a little when it happened, although she certainly wasn't surprised by that point.

"That is sparring." Dorgan said as the daemon girl struggled to her feet, "You'll notice that I defeated you in battle, but I didn't kill you. The purpose of sparring is not to skewer, roast, or eviscerate one's enemies, but to do battle for the sake of improving one's strength, technique and reaction time alone. If anyone here thinks they can only fight to the death, I encourage them to do so now, against me."

Illyana smirked a little. When phrased that way, she was something of an expert, both in sparring, and in lethal combat. Though she'd rarely let invaders leave her territory alive in the recent past, she was no stranger to fighting against Limbo's large beasts, in many cases, just to keep her skills sharp.

"Is this funny to you?" Dorgan asked, turning to glare at her in the customary daemon discontent.

"Yes." Illyana replied, "No one should try to join an army, until they've taken time to train first."

Dorgan seemed about to reply ferociously, but in just a moment, he realized what she meant, and found himself agreeing with her, despite his rotten mood. In the end, however, he decided that not only was he eager to find fault in as many of his students as possible, but he wanted to know all he could about the new arrivals, before trying to train them.

"Should I assume, then, that you aren't a hypocrite, and have undergone extensive training of your own?" Dorgan asked, turning his head to one side, so that his snake-like eyes could get a better look at her.

"Yes, you should. You won't, though." Illyana correctly predicted, "You want to prove that we're all inexperienced and pitiful, so you'll try to call my bluff, until you realize that I haven't been lying about my experience."

Quickly, Dorgan lunged toward Illyana with both arms; a snarl on his lips. However, in just a moment, she reacted, dodging to one side and knocking his arms away with her well-covered sword. He looked surprised, but also impressed.

In a moment more, Dorgan's tail had whipped around at her, but she leapt over it easily, jabbing the makeshift club forward, and striking him in the face, then pushing herself backwards, through the air, and away from him. In just a couple of seconds more, she was standing on the ground about a yard away, and he was straightening up to his full height. It looked, for a time, as if he was going to attack again, but instead, he spoke.

"Yes. Those are the basics. I doubt you'll find a decent sparring partner in this whole, inexperienced lot. That doesn't mean you don't still need training, though."

"Why is that?" Illyana asked, at which point Dorgan opened his mouth, and a blast of flame shot out, washing over Illyana. It burned her hair, and charred her flesh, and it might even had incinerated her completely, if she hadn't jumped back away from it at the last second.

"There are still many things in Limbo that you're not prepared for." Dorgan said, grinning as Illyana continued clutching her sword, burned but determined, "You aren't ready to fight with those who've mastered magic, for example."

"No." Illyana admitted honestly enough, "I know nothing about magic. In that, I'm deficient."

Satisfied with his victory, Dorgan turned back to face the other newcomers, and said, "Now fight without killing each other, until I return."

Then, turning to face Illyana, Dorgan muttered "Follow me."

Illyana was still hurting from the burns all over her body, but she took it one agonizing step at a time, as she followed Dorgan outside, and into another tent, where three hideous daemons were sitting in a circle and chanting.

"These will be your trainers." Dorgan said quietly, as he left, "You don't merit my training anymore."

Illyana stood there, watching the three daemons chant for a few moments. One had a head that was virtually covered in either eyes or eyelashes, another had a hawk-like face and wings, and the third had long horns on the sides of his head, like an ox. They were just sitting and chanting, as if nothing else in the world existed, and all that mattered was the chant, and whatever it accomplished.

After watching the ritual for almost three minutes, however, Illyana began to lose her patience with being ignored, and asked "Well?"

Almost at once, Illyana heard a rumbling noise, and looked up to see small clouds gathering inside the tent. Soon, they'd covered the whole roof of the tent, and begun to discharge lightning downward at her.

Again and again, the bolts of lightning struck, often in several parts of the tent at once, and yet, the three daemons in that tent, sitting together, were never touched by them. Illyana could tell immediately that the lightning was some form of attack, but after running from the electric bolts for almost a minute, she noticed something about them. No bolts of lightning had hit anywhere inside the circle that the three had formed. It was Illyana's first clue as to what her new mentors wanted of her. Quickly, she leapt in between two of them, and found herself in the one spot in the tent with no clouds, and no lightning.

Illyana was a little confused as she watched the lightning die away, and the clouds dissipate. She wasn't sure what the storm had been meant to teach her, but it was already becoming obvious that her new mentors wouldn't be as easy to communicate with as her old ones had been. They opened they eyes, and they sometimes seemed to look in new directions, but not much else about them was ever going to change in her time there.

It was only after watching the three of them stare at her from within that circle for a while, that Illyana realized what she was expected to do next. Sitting on the floor as they did, Illyana began to join in the chanting.

* * *

Illyana had chanted for three hours, before she felt a spark of something brush across her consciousness. An hour later, there was another one, and they increased in frequency at an alarming rate, until she felt as if she was surrounded by them. It was only then, covered so much by those invisible baubles, that Illyana realized what they were. They were the true form of magic, as it existed in the natural environments of Limbo. They were what the others had drawn on to create the storm. Illyana felt the magic growing thicker and thicker around herself as she continued to chant, until she started to feel a little crowded by it all. Then, she finally decided to stop chanting for a moment.

As soon as Illyana stopped chanting, the magic faded away almost completely. She could still sense it a little, but not as much as she had before. For a moment, Illyana thought that she might start chanting again, but no. She'd never seen a magic-user chant while casting a spell, so clearly, there must have been another way to tap into that incredible power.

Illyana started thinking the chant over in her thoughts. The words made almost no sense at all. They weren't even real words; just a collection of sounds, grunts and single letters, crammed together. If they'd ever been words at one time, it was in a language that Illyana had never heard. Not surprisingly, thinking about the chant didn't quite produce the same effect as speaking it.

However, since she didn't have much else to do, Illyana decided to determine if there were some way to sense magic without the chanting. It seemed like a logical first step to determining how it really worked.

Illyana tried to determine how to represent the chant's words and intonations using letters, then tried to determine whether maybe the sound of the chant itself caused the magic sensitivity, but that seemed unlikely, since none of her new mentors had stopped chanting in all the time she'd been there. After that, however, she hit upon the correct solution; Illyana zoned out entirely.

At once, the sense came back just as it had when she'd first started chanting. Only slightly at first, then stronger and stronger. Soon, she began to feel crowded by the magic again, and started regaining her focus on the world around her.

As Illyana focused more, her magic sense seemed to grow weaker, but it quickly regained its full strength, and she continued to pay closer and closer attention to it, feeling it grow stronger inside of her. At last, she was focusing hard enough to stand up again, and that was when she realized that she was hungry.

It was natural to be hungry, of course. She'd been in that tent, sitting on the ground and refining her magic sense for just over ten hours. Quickly, she headed for the edge of the circle, and that was when she felt something just overhead, and looked up to see that the clouds were gathering again.

Illyana wanted to shout at her new mentors; retaliate against them, or otherwise condemn them for their continual attack. After all, she wasn't as adept at magic as they were. She still needed food in order to survive. However, just as Illyana was thinking up some manner of plan for defeating the three of them, she realized the reason why their lightning spell was still charging to attack her. They didn't mean to use it to trap her, but to test her. It was one last test of skill, before she'd be allowed to leave.

However, recognizing the test had been the hard part. As soon as she determined why her new mentors were continuing to attack her, Illyana adapted quickly to their attack. She sensed the way in which they shaped their magic, to create controlled friction in the air, which resolved itself into bolts of lightning, so Illyana began struggling to shape the magic that she was sensing to do her bidding, willing it to move and gravitate in new ways. As the lightning charged above her, she spread the invisible magic particles out over her in a curtain, which reacted to motion within it, by producing a counterforce, stopping the friction within the lightning, and causing it to fade away as if it had never been. However, despite that, Illyana could sense more lightning still forming, and knew that she was expected to do even better than that.

Illyana wasn't sure how she'd managed to become so good at wielding magic in such a relatively-short amount of time, but when she saw the challenge put before her, she took action, shaping her magic force in the same way that her mentors had, charging the air above their very heads with friction. It was a hard spell to perform without any kind of assistance, but Illyana kept pouring magic into it, until at last, there was a loud crack, and the chanting stopped. A small spot in the center of that circle of mages was smoking slightly as together, they got to their feet, and turned to look at her, mainly with dislike. However, the one with the hawk-like appearance showed just the slightest hint of satisfaction.

"You may run off and find food if you wish," the one with the large horns said, "but don't be proud of what you've accomplished here today. These are only the basics of our art. You still have much to learn from us."

Illyana knew that it was the nature of daemons to offer no comforts to one another; even for the greatest feats, but then, she hadn't been expecting any. The very fact that they seemed willing to continue teaching her was reward enough. After all, if power was really all that mattered in Limbo, she could never feel safe until she was more powerful than anyone else.

* * *

Despite her obvious skill with the blade, Illyana wasn't sent into battle with any of the spies discovered outside of camp, or put on guard duty, or indeed, any duty at all. She couldn't help but wonder why. Still, it benefited her, as she'd spent nearly all the time that she wasn't eating or sleeping in training to master the art of magic. Using magic to cause friction and create lightning, as it turned out, was the simplest type of spell, and mastering other types was the work of large periods of time. In fact, Illyana was still trying to learn to use magic to make ice, when the Gorath army fell under attack.

It was a large-scale attack. They were common enough to any daemon army. Another army of daemons had left their base behind, and were bearing down on the Gorath army's camp. A few daemons knew the name of the enemy army, but it wasn't useful information. They were just the enemy. What else needed to be said?

However, as the Gorath army moved out to confront the enemy, Illyana was at least certain she'd be in another war. She hurried out of the tent of her mentors as the first blows were exchanged in the distance, and saw that Dorgan was passing her on one side, headed for the battle. When she saw that, she snapped to attention, exclaiming "Sir. Your orders?" just as she'd been instructed to. However, she was destined to be disappointed.

"You won't take part in this fight. I'll deal with it myself. Continue your training."

Illyana couldn't believe what she was hearing. The last time she'd born witness to a large-scale daemon war, both sides had been killed off completely, and she was almost totally certain that her power and skill would be needed in the coming battle. Besides which, she'd been feeling very inadequate up to that point, as if her failure in the previous war was something that she needed to make up for in some fashion. If she couldn't take part in a battle like that one, she realized, she might never find peace with herself.

So, despite orders to the contrary, Illyana waited until Dorgan was out of sight, then charged down a different route, to the battlefield.

* * *

As Illyana had expected, the battle seemed to be going poorly for their side, even once Dorgan had arrived. He used his fiery breath and swift, four-legged gallop to charge through his enemies, and yet, they continued to advance. It was, Illyana knew, her chance to prove herself. All of the opponents that she could see on that battlefield looked so slow and weak...

In a moment, Illyana was in the air, with the animal skin falling away from her sword.

Illyana's sword whipped back and forth through the air with the speed of a blade less than one tenth its size, as she charged through the enemy ranks, severing limbs, heads and organs. Illyana was careful to strike only those daemons who were clearly the enemy, or who attacked her first, but of those, there were a very large number. Even so, her presence had stopped the enemy's advance, and that was even before she decided to show them the magic that she'd mastered.

In a flash, storm clouds formed over the enemy forces, charging with electricity. When bolts of lightning struck them; as many as five at a time, the enemy began to realize the truth; the battle had turned against them. Illyana had been in battle for less than an hour, but the enemy was already retreating; a rare sight in Limbo.

Illyana Rasputin remained at the front lines until the enemy could no longer be seen, at which point she hurriedly wrapped her sword back up in its animal skins, which she'd been wearing around her waist in the meantime. She didn't expect to be given a medal for what she'd accomplished that day, but she certainly expected a better reaction than the one Dorgan gave her, as he stormed up to her a few minutes after the battle's end.

When Dorgan was less that seven yards from Illyana, he immediately let fly with a blast of flame from his mouth, that divided into a hundred smaller ones in seconds. Of those, three collided with Illyana herself. The rest hit the ground around her. Even so, the force of the blast was sufficient to drive her back slightly. What really hurt, though, was the message that blast conveyed. Dorgan could have done a lot more to injure her, but he was furious.

"You needed my skill in this battle!" Illyana objected, as Dorgan approached even closer, though he stayed out of reach of her sword for the moment, "If I hadn't been here to help, you might all have died!"

"It wasn't your help we needed." Dorgan said, "I had other plans set in motion. I ordered you to continue your training, not grandstand on the field of battle. You disobeyed my order directly! That is a monstrous offense! One should never disobey a commanding officer, unless one is challenging him directly, in an attempt to take his command."

Illyana swallowed hard, her sword arm going limp. Almost at once, Dorgan knocked it effortlessly from her grasp with his tail, and continued forward, until he stood within inches of her, towering over the top of her head, and glaring down at her maliciously.

"Do you seek my command?" he asked after several seconds.

"No." Illyana replied almost instantly, at which point, Dorgan circled around her, grabbing her sword in his tail. For a moment, Illyana thought that Dorgan would try to kill her, but he seemed to think better of it, and bringing her sword along with him, he headed back for camp, encouraging her to follow with a simple glance.

"Is that it?" Illyana asked nervously, "Is that all the reprimand I'll receive on this matter?"

"Doubtful," Dorgan snarled, "but like yourself, I don't yet dare to seek a higher command. I won't make an attempt to betray my own superior until I feel I'm ready. It's he who will decide your further punishments for this betrayal, not I."

Illyana felt very worried, as Dorgan lead her onward, back into the camp, and towards a deep red tent near the camp's center. It didn't look all that different from the other nearby tents, though that may have been largely for camouflage reasons. It was harder to attack the most important tent in a camp, if it didn't particularly stick out.

Dorgan quickly led Illyana into that tent, still dragging the sword with his tail, but as soon as he stepped inside, Illyana could tell that she was in for it. The being before her was one of the largest and most powerful-looking daemons she'd ever seen. He was shaped roughly like a gorilla, but with broader forearms, and sharp needles where, on a gorilla, fur would have been. He also had fangs that were very large and pronounced, and when he looked down at Illyana, he displayed a clear intelligence, looking only a little surprised by the being that had been brought before him.

"Leave the sword on the ground before you go, Dorgan." the gigantic daemon; nearly thirty feet high said. Dorgan bowed, tossing the sword to the dirt a short distance away, and left as he'd been commanded to.

Illyana was astonished by the sheer size of the being before her. Obviously, the daemon she was facing was Gorath himself; the army's leader. There was just enough room in that tent for Gorath to stand up to his full height comfortably, and move around, but Illyana knew she was going to have a hard time if he asked her any questions. Gorath was so imposing, that it was hard to imagine having a discussion with him comfortably.

"I've been told you disobeyed a direct order." Gorath said, "You may now present whatever excuses you see fit."

Illyana wasn't sure what to say, if anything, so she just paused, unable to form words. After several seconds had passed, however, Gorath asked her "Well?" in something that sounded like a loud, booming snarl.

That was when Illyana decided upon her reply.

"I cannot defend my actions, Lord Gorath. They were badly planned. I foolishly thought that Dorgan would accept my disobedience if I aided him in battle against his enemies."

"Why would you think that?" Gorath asked curiously.

"I am... not of this world." Illyana replied, "In my homeworld, some might have reacted differently than he did to my disobedience. I made a foolish assumption, and I cannot defend it."

"But now you know better..." Gorath noted.

"It makes no difference." Illyana replied, "Not now."

"Gorath does not waste words on things that make no difference." the large daemon replied angrily in his booming voice, "In fact, I've had my eye on you for quite some time, small one. Your strength and skill are... impressive for one of your size, and you seem to master new skills quickly. Those are the traits that are most needed here in Limbo. They will assist in your survival."

"Are you trying to say that you care what happens to me?" Illyana asked, amazed and surprised. It was the first hint of compassion that she'd detected from anyone in the last two years. Gorath, however, was quick to drive away her fantasies.

"In a sense." he replied, "As long as you're a part of my army, I have a stake in what happens to you. However, you may yet be able to fill a role somewhat larger than a simple soldier."

"What... What do you mean?" Illyana asked, confused.

"I'm not the strongest daemon in Limbo." Gorath admitted, "There are others whose power exceeds mine by a wide margin. I fear that while this army of weaker daemons has flocked around me, they've also done very little to make me any stronger."

"Stronger?" Illyana asked, amazed. It was all she needed to say.

"I've heard stories... legends of artifacts, protected by traps and enchantments, which might strengthen my powers even further. To reach those artifacts, I have need of a small team of soldiers, strong enough to confront such dangers, and also to run the risk of encountering the enemy in the wilderness. Of course, such special operatives would be well rewarded for their work. It would be a job with many benefits for an enterprising daemon or... whatever you are."

Illyana was astonished by what Gorath was suggesting, and in amazement and wonder, she asked, "Are you saying that I am such a soldier? Are you saying that I have the power to..."

"No." Gorath replied sharply, causing her to fall silent in disappointment, and just a little fear, "I am saying no such thing. Your experience with magic is not yet sufficient. It will take months of training... perhaps years before you're ready. Still, if I had such soldiers serving me, things could be accomplished. I would be continuing to make some form of progress, and so would you."

"Why tell me all that?" Illyana asked suspiciously, "You must know that no matter who you choose as your emissary, you won't really be able to trust them. What makes you think that I, or someone like me won't just run off with these artifacts, and form an army of our own once we're strong enough?"

"Logic." Gorath replied, not angry that time, for some reason, "In my youth, I was ambitious and foolish. I sought out an army of my own, because I'd suffered for so long in the ranks of another. You, however, are intelligent and cunning. I can see that in you easily. You understand logic, and the conclusions that one draws based on it. Therefore, you'll understand when I tell you the reasons why you won't betray me, even when you're strong enough to."

Illyana didn't like the sound of that, but as Gorath continued, the absolute truth, and airtight logic of his words both rang through her heart, and inspired her thoughts.

"He's planned it out so well..." Illyana realized, "I must find some way to think on his level."

* * *

Days passed, then weeks, then months, and Illyana's training continued uninterrupted. Struggles, battles, and even wars raged outside of the tent where she was training herself in the use of a hundred disciplines of magic; a hundred ways to wield the power all around her, to protect her own life, and to bring down misery and suffering upon her enemies. She learned of the magic words, that could assist her in focusing her full power, and the secret techniques used for every occult feat that the mages of Gorath knew, but she didn't fight in the wars outside, and as she trained to become the champion that Gorath needed, she remembered his words.

"You must realize the reason that I can never leave the center of my camp. If I leave, another member of my army will seize the opportunity, and take command. Then, I would be forced to conquer my own army upon my return. That's why I can't seek these enchanted artifacts myself. That said, there are three reasons why you won't betray me, and form an army of your own, and the first is obvious, even to low-class scum. If you betrayed me, we'd become enemies, and I would make a personal effort to kill you, regardless of what happened to my army as a result."

Illyana remembered those words throughout all of her training, until the day, nearly a year later, when her mage teachers stood up once more, and then knelt before her. She'd learned all that they had to teach her.

* * *

"There's an old ruin a few dozen miles north of here." Gorath said to Illyana, who continued to refine her magic force subconsciously as she listened to him, "The entrance is covered in rubble, but with your strength, it shouldn't be difficult to remove it. The real problem is that enchanted traps await inside, to kill or hideously disfigure anyone who enters against the will of that ruin's guardian. If you can get past the traps unscathed, and defeat the guardian, you'll earn the tablet of Kordul, which, according to legend, bears a long-forgotten spell on it. Bring that tablet to me."

"Yes, Lord Gorath." Illyana said, turning on her heel, and stepping out of the tent. It was a transitional phase in her life, because she had, at last, risen above the rank and file daemons, essentially proving herself strong enough to fight on and above their level. Her doubts over her former inability to fight, which had led to Masira's death, had faded once Gorath had told her that she was ready to serve as his special operative, but truthfully, there was something about working for that daemon, or any daemon that made her feel worried. After all the time she'd spent fighting in Limbo, and all the times that daemons had proved to her that they were different from the people of her own world, Illyana was starting to become convinced that no daemon could be completely trusted, and if someone couldn't be completely trusted, it was foolish to let them take charge over one's life. For the moment, Gorath was her superior, but Illyana had definitely gotten the feeling that she should be making preparations to defend herself from him. He might never betray her, but if he did, she wanted to be ready.

It was with those thoughts in her mind that Illyana dashed to the edge of camp, leapt atop a tent pole, and from there, to the top of the small wall that protected the camp from most sides. In moments, she'd landed on the ground outside the camp, and begun her dash north, through the hollow woods.

The problem with traveling through the hollow woods, was that the trees were large, strong, and eager to seize and devour newcomers. Most of the reason Illyana passed that way, was so that she'd have a fight on her hands with the monstrous woods, which would give her the chance to think about her situation. She did indeed think about it, and she kept thinking about it as she passed through those woods after hours of running, and chopping through the living wood with her sword. When she finally emerged from the woods, she shook the thoughts aside, remembering once again the words of Gorath, as she approached the ruins he'd spoken of to her.

"The second reason that you won't betray me is that only I know the secret location of these artifacts of power. If you follow me, you'll benefit from the training, and perhaps even from a few of the artifacts yourself, but if not, I'll simply find someone else to do the work."

Illyana's arms strained with all their might to move the rubble that covered the ruin's entrance, and at last, the large, stone doorway was revealed, and in a flash, she'd kicked it open. It was her first mission into a location full of ancient, enchanted traps, so she wasn't a hundred percent certain what to expect. She knew, however, that there would be danger.

As she stepped into the room, Illyana looked around carefully, and discovered that words were etched into the ceiling of the place.

"All who step inside this temple, rejoice and be delighted. If you cannot, then woe be you who step into these halls. Within this temple lay great traps to free a daemon from the needs of the flesh. With trust, with love, in a time of peace, some might seek this change. However, come no further if your strength is what you value. Step too far into this place, and strength will mean nothing at all."

"Strength means nothing?" Illyana was astonished. The inscription almost sounded as if a human had written it. Being freed from the demands of the flesh... She couldn't help but wonder what that meant, but if, and she suspected, the traps were there to rob her of her strength, it was probably prudent to determine where, precisely, those traps were, before continuing onward.

Illyana whipped her sword back and forth through the air a few times, then held it out in front of her. She took a step forward... and felt a sharp, burning sensation in her arm.

Quickly, Illyana leapt back, to see what kind of damage had been done. Her arm was feeling stiff and rigid like a board, and it seemed to have thickened slightly under the assault of the trap. She could see almost at once why such a trap, carried to its natural conclusion, would render strength meaningless. The warping of her body by magic was something that no level of strength could have protected her from. Still, the important thing to think about was how to get past that trap, which meant that Illyana needed to discover how the trap worked.

Closing her eyes, Illyana began the chant. It was a chant she hadn't used in almost a year, but when she used it, she could feel all of the magic around her in that room, and she instantly recognized the patterns they were forming.

Without training so much in the various uses of magic, Illyana never could have determined that the entire trap was being run by tiny, magical spirits called wisps. They, like the magic that had spawned them, were almost totally invisible. None of them were very bright, but they followed the simple instructions of whoever had created them, and those instructions, it seemed, were to locate, and cast their spell on the nearest source of organic matter. There were ways around a spell like that, however.

Reaching into a slot, that was attached to the belt that Gorath had given her about a month before, Illyana removed a small knife, and in a single, swift motion, she'd reopened an old cut in her left arm, liberating the blood within to the open air. A moment after that, in a practiced swing, the blood spattered to the ground in front of her, and Illyana could see it starting to swell, and harden before her very eyes. Then, as the wisps busied themselves with casting their spell on her blood, she ran past them, down the hall towards her objective.

Illyana's mad dash at last came to an end, after passing several simple, mechanical traps, when she found herself in a large chamber, with a six-foot-tall pedestal in the center. On top of that pedestal was a stone tablet; the artifact that Gorath had described to her. However, at first, she didn't see the guardian he'd mentioned. The first clue she received that Gorath hadn't been mistaken about there being a guardian came in the form of a booming voice, that shook the enormous, stone chamber.

"So Limbo is still not a land of peace and prosperity. A shame. Had it been so, you might have been satisfied with the wisps' gift."

Suddenly, Illyana realized that the passage she'd come in by had closed up, or at least, it looked as if it had closed up at first. A large, stone wall had blocked it off. However, as Illyana looked closer, she saw that what she'd originally mistaken for a stone wall was actually the leg of a monstrous stone being; shaped like a man made of rocks, but many times larger. Illyana's fears and doubts began to rise up once again, as she saw that figure, but she'd been fighting for too long. She barely remembered what it felt like to be intimidated by a foe to the point of trying to flee.

"Their gift?" Illyana asked, confused and disgusted, "Those wisps would have turned me into a swollen statue; a grotesque parody of myself. That's a curse, not a gift."

"The wisps were not created to do evil." the massive golem replied, "Because you see, in becoming what you call grotesque, the wisps also give one the ability to survive without hunger, thirst, sleep, or any other needs. In exchange, they ask only to take from you your strength, and your ability to defend yourself from violent creatures. In a world of peace, there would be many who would accept such a convenience."

"This isn't a world of peace, and I'm a soldier who depends on her strength for survival." Illyana replied sharply.

"So I see." the golem said, "It is truly a shame that beings such as yourself seek the power to destroy, rather than merely to survive. However, so be it. This tablet bares the magic incantation for a long-forgotten spell. It grants great, destructive power to whoever uses it, but it is not to be used lightly."

"In Limbo, power is all that really matters." Illyana replied quickly, "Those who have power are great, and those who don't have power die by the thousands in the battlefields. I want to survive. I want your power."

"Defeat me in battle, then." The golem replied, crossing the room, to position himself between Illyana and the tablet, "If you can do that, the tablet will be yours to take."

Illyana had known, on some level, that it would come down to a fight, but the golem was even larger than Gorath. She would have preferred not to fight him if it could be helped.

"You speak of peace, as if you've experienced it yourself." Illyana said, "Why do I have to fight you?"

"It's your choice to spend your life in battle; not mine." the golem replied, "As for the peace that I know, you would neither understand, nor appreciate it, because it comes from having power over no one in the world. I command no soldiers, I gather no armies, and I conquer no territories, but I also serve no masters. Mine is most often a life of peace. Now fight me, so that I may have peace once again."

Illyana felt a little sad, and a little afraid. The golem, she decided, was intelligent in terms of his ability to wield sophistry against her, but as usual, all that really matter was who had the greatest power.

In a flash, Illyana's magic force flared up like a whirlwind around her, and to the outside observer, she must have looked as if she were on fire. Her whole body glowed bright red, as she advanced on the massive stone giant, then, with a mighty burst of speed, she charged forward, driving her sword towards him.

Illyana's sword had cleaved stone before, but whatever the golem was made of, it was something stronger than that, because he seemed to suffer no damage at all from her attack, and shrugged her off a moment later. Soon, Illyana was flying backwards through the air, trying her best to regain some kind of balance, before her back collided hard with one of the chamber's walls, and she fell to the ground in pain.

"His armor must be enchanted somehow." Illyana realized silently. That meant that defeating him would be more complicated than just hitting him with her sword. She'd need to use a new technique she'd recently been working on.

Once again, Illyana's aura began to burn brightly, shining all around her, but by an extra effort of concentration, which put a great deal of strain on even her skill, her aura began to expand further out, traveling along her arms and through her fingertips, until it had reached the very end of her sword. Illyana felt the makeshift enchantment changing the sword; strengthening and sharpening it, making it more and more powerful... It might still not be enough to defeat the golem, but if not, she didn't know what else to try. Fire, ice, lightning... none of it was powerful enough to destroy enchanted rock. She needed something stronger.

As the golem's fist came down in her direction, Illyana brought up her sword, and swatted it aside with astonishing skill, then got to her feet again, and started her charge through the chamber towards the mighty giant. In moments, they'd met it battle once more, and powerful blows were exchanged between them that shook the whole cavern. At last, Illyana discovered, she was fighting on even terms with the monstrous being, and whenever her sword, and his fist made contact with each other, the collision produced both shards of rock, and spatters of blood. It would only be a matter of time before one of them gave out from the pain. Regardless of how close a match they were for one another, however, Illyana wasn't giving up. As they fought, the ruins trembled around them, but the pillar in the room's center remained unharmed by their battle. If Illyana won, the tablet would be hers.

At last, however, the golem seemed to be getting desperate. As Illyana drove him back, slicing away small sections of his arms, new shards of rock rose up out of his shoulders, and started to encircle her dangerously. Just as she was about to make a deep cut in the golem's elbow, three of the rock shards stopped spinning, and struck Illyana, then continued spinning madly. The force of the blow was so powerful, that it knocked Illyana off her feet, but she didn't drop her sword, so she was ready with it, a moment later, to deflect the next blow that the golem had thrown at her. In moments after that, she was standing upright again, but she knew that she'd lose if the rock shards continued to blindside her like that.

"I have to do something quickly." Illyana decided, and with a single, mighty surge of magic, flames shot out from her body in all directions, concentrated and intensified, as much as she could make them with her remaining strength. It wasn't enough to damage the rock shards that surrounded her, but the sheer force of Illyana's spell did drive them back, and the blinding brightness of her fire seemed to have also disoriented the golem. He'd paused for a moment in his attack, giving Illyana the opening that she needed.

With a quick lunge, and a snarl like a tiger claiming its prey, Illyana had leapt into the air, and suddenly, the golem lay on the chamber floor, a huge, penetrating gash in its chest, as the sword sank deeper and deeper into it.

The golem writhed in miserable agony, as Illyana Rasputin tore away its last ounce of life, but she'd killed so many times before, that she knew exactly how it went. In a few moments, the golem's body would stop moving, and would no longer work properly. Then true victory would be hers, and so would the tablet.

However, there were things that Illyana hadn't been aware or, and as the last twitches within the golem's dying form subsided, Illyana spun around in an exhausted panic, because she'd just heard the sound of sarcastic clapping from the room's entrance.

"Cute, little one." came a voice from the shadows; a voice that Illyana recognized, though it had been almost three years since she'd heard it, "Don't allow this victory to make you proud, however. You're still a very small and frail person, after all."

"Belasco." Illyana said, spitting the name out like poisonous marrow. In just a moment, he was standing right next to her.

Illyana found herself flabbergasted and terrified all over again. In the three years since she'd seen Belasco last, she'd wizened up to the ways of Limbo, learned the arts of hunting, scavenging, cooking, fighting, and surviving in general, and become the champion of an entire army of daemons, and yet, there was Belasco, still using his power to terrify her, and there she was, just as helpless and terrified as she'd been on her first day in Limbo. The whole thing made her feel ill.

"I'll give you some credit for accomplishing this much." Belasco said at last, "You've learned to survive, and you've learned to fight on a level beyond the rank and file. The terrified girl that I once coaxed into my world has become a seasoned veteran, and an expert in everything she's set her mind to. Regardless, there's still a vast gulf to be bridged, both literally and figuratively."

Illyana knew that Belasco's boast about the gulf between them in power wasn't an empty one. The way he'd gotten within inches of her, and she hadn't even been able to sense it coming... He could have used that opportunity to kill her very easily. Killing him, after all, was all she wanted to do.

"Why did you come here?" Illyana asked, "Do you plan to kill me?"

"Only if you don't prove useful to me," Belasco replied, still grinning, "but I can see that your time in Limbo has given you a healthy appreciation for power. You know that it's power alone that matters in this world. Those with power will rise swiftly, and obtain more. Those without it will die. You know this, and honestly, all I really want at this point is for you to grow even more powerful."

Illyana was suspicious of that, but as long as Belasco wasn't planning on attacking her, she decided to listen to him.

"I'm the lord of this entire realm," Belasco explained, "so it falls to reason that I'm also its most powerful inhabitant. No one else has the power needed to defeat me, and take my place. I live securely in a castle, thousands of miles to the west of here. It's called the Castle of Despair, and it floats in the air above the pits of Limbo. My castle can be entered by five gates, each one guarded by a pair of daemon guards, who are veterans in battle and magic like yourself. However, to even reach those gates, you must cross one of five bridges leading to the castle. Seek out those bridges, and seek out me."

Belasco took a few steps back, away from Illyana, but just as he turned away from her, and started walking towards one of the nearby walls, she heard a few more words escape his lips.

"For the record, however, you should know that Gorath would have been rather messily dispatched by both the wisps, and the golem you've just killed. His physical strength still exceeds your own at present, but in every other respect, you're his superior already."

Then, Belasco seemed to pass through the solid stone wall at the far end of the chamber, and Illyana was left alone again. For nearly five minutes, she stayed where she was, clutching her sword, and still expecting an attack, but when none came, she remembered that she had a job to do.

Leaping upwards onto the pedestal in the room's center, Illyana grabbed the tablet under one arm, and headed for the exit. At first, she thought she might have to spill more of her blood, to get past the wisps again, but it seemed that they were still busy with what she'd given them already. Soon, she was outside once more, with the treasure she'd been looking for.

Illyana was about to head back for camp, but something was holding her in place. For some reason, it didn't feel like such a good idea to head back just yet. She tried to motivate herself, by remembering Gorath's words to her once again, but it didn't really work.

"The last reason that you won't betray me and form an army of your own, is that if you do, you'll fall into the same trap that I did; gathering soldiers and resources, but never again increasing your own strength. As long as you continue serving me, you'll have the chance to increase your strength further through training, and perhaps some of the secrets of the artifacts that we'll recover."

Illyana had thought that Gorath's logic and reasoning were so brilliant when she'd first heard him speak. She'd envied him his ability to think, and evaluate the possible choices of whoever he was talking to. However, in that moment, Illyana realized that although Gorath had thought things through to an extent, there was still one thing he hadn't considered, and one course of action that could place her at the top of her personal chain of command. Quickly, Illyana lay the tablet on the ground, and began to read from it.

"You who find this tablet of Kordul, rejoice." Illyana read silently, "What follows is the incantation for unlocking a secret magic spell, granting to its caster the power to..."

Illyana grinned mischievously, as read the description of the spell, then memorized it completely. A few seconds later, she held one hand out in the tablet's direction, causing a bolt of lightning to strike the carving of the incantation itself. The tablet remained intact, but a small mark had been made in the etchings. From then on, no one who read the tablet would know the correct incantation to use, but she would, and, she decided, there was no time to practice it like the present.

As Illyana uttered those ancient, forgotten words, she felt herself changing, her magic aura turning a deeper red, as her muscles changed in structure and power. Bright, red light shone forth from her body in all directions, as she realized that it was just the kind of power that she needed to get what she'd been aiming for.

* * *

Within a few days, Illyana had returned to the camp of Gorath, carrying the tablet under one arm, and her sword in the other. Gorath looked suspicious as she entered, and for good reason. A daemon leader always benefited from a little suspicion.

"Here is the tablet." Illyana said, handing the stone slab to Gorath.

"Very well." Gorath said, taking the tablet from her, though he still sounded suspicious, "You may go."

"I think not." Illyana replied, "There are matters we should discuss first."

"Did you learn nothing from your disobedience of Dorgan?" Gorath demanded furiously, "Has it been so long since then, that you've forgotten the lessons you learned that day?"

"I learned those lessons well." Illyana replied, "I've sworn never to disobey a superior..."

At that, however, her stern expression twisted into a wicked grin, as she said, "unless I mean to take his command for my own."

It was more than Gorath was willing to take, even from his most important soldier. In what he probably thought was a swift motion, Gorath swiped at Illyana, but she leapt out of the path of his hands easily, until she was right outside of his tent. Gorath, however, emerged only moments later, furious and snarling as he raised both arms, causing a rain of sharp needles to descend upon her. In reply, Illyana drew her sword, enchanting it again, as she had several times in the last few days, just to get used to it. In a flash, and a blur of motion, she'd knocked the needles away from her, causing them to rain down on the Gorath army camp in all directions, and forcing weaker daemons to run for cover. As they fled, Gorath charged Illyana again, expending more of his needle-like quills, to no better effect, as he swung at her repeatedly. Soon, the battle had taken the two of them outside of camp, neither giving up.

"You've betrayed me too soon!" Gorath exclaimed as they fought, "Even if you can kill me, you'll never learn the location of the other artifacts!"

"You're a short-sighted buffoon, Gorath!" Illyana replied with contempt, "You don't deserve the power to command an army!"

Again and again, loud crashing noises erupted all around them as they fought, sending tremors through the ground and the air, that could be felt in all the nearby army bases. After a short time, Gorath seemed to have realized that his needle-like fur was more useful for defense than attack, because he'd stopped trying to fire them off at his enemy, and was focusing on simply battering her with his fists, feet and head, wielding his full strength and speed against her, and occasionally trying to grab her, with the intention of biting off her head. Still, Illyana defended herself well from the army leader's attacks, and at last, after an hour of fighting, as each began to wear down, Illyana realized that they were dead even.

"We could keep fighting like this forever..." Illyana realized aloud, "and neither of us would win. I thought that might be the case, but I wanted to be sure."

"That changes nothing." Gorath replied, "One of us will die before this day ends."

However, that was when Gorath's mouth fell open in shock and horror. He could feel the magic currents around Illyana's body changing; reshaping into new forms, unlike any he'd ever felt before. Those patterns of magic wove tightly around her, as if struggling to crush her, but when they seemed to press almost directly against her skin, her entire body started shining with bright red light, in a single, sustained burst of power.

"Fight me now." Illyana replied eagerly, "Fight a power lost to this section of Limbo for centuries."

At once, maddened by both fury and terror, Gorath charged forward, driving his fist towards Illyana's face, but as he got closer, she did something he'd never expected her to; she tossed her sword aside.

Raising one hand, Illyana stopped Gorath's fist easily in mid-air. The monstrous daemon lord howled in fury and helplessness, as he tried to lash out with his other arm, only to find her right hand there, to block his blow.

"This was the power hidden in that tablet," Illyana said calmly, as she held his hands firmly in her own, "but I doubt you'll ever have the wits needed to unlock it yourself."

Growing more furious every moment, Gorath rose up, driving his feet in her direction, but suddenly, she was gone, and he fell to the ground with a crash.

"Using this technique, I'm your superior in every way." Gorath heard, as Illyana seemed to just fade into being in front of him, "I'm stronger than you, faster than you, and I've been more skilled than you for quite some time. If you need more painful proof of this, attack me again."

Sure enough, Gorath did indeed leap back upright, and charge to the attack, but in that moment, Illyana seemed to fade away again, and within seconds, she was driving her fist into a bare spot in the needle fur, near one of Gorath's left ribs. It had been a very long time since Gorath had felt such a powerful attack. Even as the blow knocked him to the ground, he could tell that at least two of his ribs had been broken by its sheer force, and his organs had been covered in bruises. He was a wreck, and he knew that he couldn't even get up from where he was, much less win a fight against someone so strong.

"Finish me..." he muttered after laying silently on the ground for several seconds. He couldn't see Illyana from where he was, but he could hear her approaching him slowly.

"Why should I do that?" Illyana asked derisively.

"If you don't kill me, I'll kill you." Gorath replied, but the threat rang hollow.

"You have neither the power, nor the cleverness needed to kill me." Illyana replied with utter scorn in her voice, "Save your threats for battles you can win. Like it or not, you no longer have any power. You have no power over your men, you have no power over me, and you have no power over the time when you will die. I certainly have no intention of killing you as a favor."

"I want no favors from you!" Gorath spat out.

"Naturally." Illyana replied, "That's why you'll receive none. For now, I'll keep you alive, but you'll live only as my slave; only to do my will, and deploy your forces as I command."

"What..." Gorath muttered furiously, "What are you saying?"

In just a moment, Gorath's whole body was bathed in a green light, and he could feel his injuries repairing themselves in the midst of the spell of healing, cast by the girl who would be his new ruler.

"I am saying, Lord Gorath," Illyana replied, as he scrambled, terrified, to his feet, "that you are to return to your army, and continue to lead them, but from time to time, I'll visit you, and when I do, I may ask you for information. Give me good information and you'll live. Betray me and you'll die. For now, all that I request from you is the location of the next artifact that you know of. Everything else will be in your hands. Also, you don't need to tell any of the soldiers that I'm your master now. Their morale will be stronger under you, I suspect."

* * *

In moments after that, Illyana left the base again, on the trail of the next artifact of power, and thousands of miles away, in the Castle of Despair, Belasco chuckled.

"So she's already setting up puppet leaders for herself." he observed silently, "A wise and important step. Perhaps she'll even begin serving in my personal army soon."

* * *

To Be Continued...


	16. Magic Neo 3: The Queen of All Daemons

Magik Neo

Issue 3

"The Queen of All Daemons"

* * *

Illyana's time for quite a while wasn't spent searching for Belasco, but for even greater power. She didn't just was to kill Belasco; she wanted to crush him. For that reason, she braved many traps, and uncovered many ancient treasures, all of which served to increase her personal power in some way. Whenever she wasn't searching for power, she was on the move, training in her new abilities, with the intention of making them even more powerful. One of her first objectives had been to increase the strength of her spells until they were equal to her physical strength. That had been extremely difficult, and it had taken a very long time to build up enough magic to do it, but in the end, it had gotten done, and every time she discovered a new spell, that increased her power further, Illyana had needed to start the whole process all over again. In the end, she chose to simply keep refining her magic more and more, even if her physical strength fell behind, and from that point onward, it occasionally did.

At last, however, came the day when Gorath's knowledge of secrets gave out, and she left him for good, beginning her mad dash towards the Castle of Despair. Wherever she went, weak daemons attacked her, and she dispatched them easily, but at last, she came within sight of Belasco's castle.

* * *

Elsa was feeling very uncomfortable, almost to the point of being terrified, as she continued to listen, but at that point in Illyana's story, Elsa stopped her by raising one hand.

"Yes?" Illyana asked, "What is it?"

In her tone of voice, Elsa heard a cutting ruthlessness, as if she would pounce on any sign of weakness, and as crazy as the whole thing was, Elsa began to feel afraid of Illyana. For several moments, both stared silently at each other, as Elsa tried to come up with some excuse for interrupting. At last, she settled upon one.

"How long had you been in the daemon world by that point?" Elsa asked. It wasn't a comforting kind of question to ask, but comfort was starting to seem so meaningless to the therapist.

"Four and a half years." Illyana said, "It had been a year and a half since I'd enslaved Gorath, and none of that time had been wasted. I'd grown much stronger in many different ways."

Elsa and Illyana were both silent again for a short while longer, but Illyana's silence was as uncomfortable as her words, and in the end, Elsa would have begged her to continue, just to escape it.

"Please..." Elsa said, "Tell me about the castle."

* * *

The Castle of Despair was enormous; several hundred yards high, and as many wide. It rested on a chunk of rock that seemed to float in mid-air on its own, supported by nothing, or perhaps by an enchantment, but it was so subtly-done that Illyana couldn't sense it directly. The spires of the castle towered upward, and even from a distance away, one had to look up at it.

The pit that it was floating in the middle of was sheer, deep and miles across. It reminded Illyana of the many times she'd fallen upon her first arrival in Limbo, and of the pit she'd first arrived near. She had no desire to find out what was at the bottom of that hole, and that was when she turned her attention to the bridges.

There were five bridges surrounding the castle, each flanked by two sharp spikes of stone that jutted upward from the ground. As Illyana got closer to the stalagmites bordering the nearest bridge, she could see that an axe was wedged into one, and a bracelet into the other. Glowing circles rested in front of each, with powerful enchantments surrounding them.

"Undoubtedly," Illyana thought silently as she approached the bridge, "these are traps."

Then, just as Illyana's foot came down on the wood of the poorly-tended bridge, she heard a voice from behind her; a male voice, which sounded old and weak.

"What do you think you're doing?"

In a flash, Illyana spun around to find herself facing an old daemon with a gray beard, and only a single arm, which protruded from his chest. Aside from that, he looked mostly human.

"I have things to settle with Belasco." Illyana said, "I've spent a great deal of time gathering power, and now the time has come to..."

However, Illyana's words fell to pieces even as she said them. The old man was laughing at her.

In the twinkling of an eye, Illyana had brought her sword down on the old daemon, and he, in turn, had reached out with his hand and caught the blade easily in mid-air. Furious and confused, Illyana activated the spells that enhanced her power. The old daemon seemed only marginally impressed, as he and Illyana fought, and for good reason. Every time she attacked with her sword, he would block the strike with his hand. At last, it seemed that the old man was starting to become a little tired, but Illyana felt almost ready to pass out. She couldn't even lift her arms anymore.

"Who... who are you?" Illyana asked.

"I was once one of Belasco's guards." the old man said, "However, I grew too secure in my power, and others surpassed me, in time. Then I was thrown out of the castle, to reflect upon my failures. Belasco decided that I was too weak to serve him."

"Too weak?" Illyana asked in shock, "You're the strongest warrior I've ever fought!"

"There is a vast gulf of power between those outside the castle, and those who reside inside." the old man simply replied, "Still, you've given me a decent fight, and it's made me feel alive once more. I may as well tell you about the secret of this castle's power. Every daemon who enters is a pioneer in strength and magic. They all surpass armies and leaders in many fields, and they come to this bridge by the thousands. However, not one of them has the power needed to enter. That is what the weapons of power are for. The axe magnifies a daemon's strength severalfold, and the bracelet does the same for their magic. Each artifact vastly increases the power of whoever claims it. They are placed here to give aspiring daemon warriors the chance to compete with those inside the castle. If you enter one of those circles of power, you'll be put to the test. Win the challenge, and you'll be given the weapon of power and you may, perhaps, become as strong as me in the process. However, if you fail, you'll die, and your body will simply fade from existence."

It didn't take Illyana more than a moment to head for the circles of power, but the old man wasn't finished.

"There's one more thing that I think you ought to know." he said, "These objects represent vast power to whoever claims them, and so, the price for claiming them is vast. Of every thousand daemons that I've seen enter one of those circles of power, one has emerged alive, winning the prize, and heading across the bridge to the castle. I don't expect you to prevail."

Illyana thought, for a moment, that maybe the old man was just trying to scare her into backing off, but given the type of girl she'd become, there was no way she could. She was unwilling to be treated as anyone's pet anymore. No matter how long it took, or how great a struggle she had to endure, she was determined to overcome her enemies.

Against the warnings of the old man, Illyana stepped forward, into the circle to the right, which stood in front of the bracelet.

* * *

Belasco truly began to panic for the first time in a long while, but there was very little that even he could do to stop what had been started at that point.

"That fool." Belasco muttered, and in a flash, he'd traveled out from his castle, to the place where Illyana seemed to have vanished into the circle of power. There, Belasco saw the aging Guerral, and Guerral saw Belasco. The sight terrified him.

"Why did you tell her that?" Belasco demanded, "She will almost certainly die now, and all of my plans will come to nothing! Even I cannot sense the outcome of tests held within circles of power!"

"I... I meant no harm, Lord Belasco." Guerral replied, "I did not realize that her life was important to you."

"Blast it..." Belasco muttered, then speaking to Guerral more loudly, he said, "I must not show her weakness, whatever comes of this. If she sees me here, much work will be lost. If she survives this test, do not tell her that I was here, and by all that's unholy, don't let her enter that other circle! Today, there's already been a huge risk of losing everything I want, and that's more than sufficient."

Then, Belasco simply faded away, to return to his castle, and Guerral didn't relish his next task, as he waited for the girl to reappear.

* * *

Illyana was in a very strange situation, all at once. She didn't remember where she was, or who she was. She only knew what the spell was telling her. In moments, she found herself in an army camp she didn't recognize, serving a larger, but less powerful daemon named Morg. Illyana began at once to get the feeling that she should overthrow him, but then, she felt a powerful message in her mind, and remembered why she hadn't overthrown Morg already. There was another, stronger daemon above him, who'd made her a solemn promise. At the end of the week, if Morg still lived, she would be given a power beyond price.

Days passed, and Morg's orders became more and more dangerous and infuriating, made all the more infuriating by the fact that Illyana knew she could have torn him to pieces at any time. At times, she felt that she might tear herself apart, unless she could do the same to him, but her craving for the power was stronger than her anger.

By the end of the week, Illyana had been driven well past the point of murderous rage by Morg more than once, but she hadn't killed him, and suddenly, she felt her power swelling, and everything around her began to fade away, until her memories reappeared, and she found herself back at the wooden bridge, a glowing, red bracelet falling into her hands.

* * *

"Amazing." Guerral muttered, as Illyana strapped the bracelet to one wrist, "I never would have thought that someone like you could pass such a challenge. You may yet become a soldier in the armies of Belasco himself with this power."

"That isn't what I want." Illyana said, turning to face the old daemon with a sneer, "I want to murder Belasco, not serve him. He's served as my tormentor, and he controls all our fates. I want to take that role away from him."

As she said that, Illyana turned and headed for the other circle; the one in front of the broadaxe, but Guerral stood in her way in moments.

"I would advise against that." Guerral said, "There are other ways to obtain the power you seek; ways which do not involve such a dire risk to your neck."

"Why do you care whether I live or die, old one?" Illyana asked.

"I..." Guerral muttered, "I care nothing about what happens to you, but I care a great deal about what happens to me. I should never have encouraged you to enter that first circle, nor should you enter the second."

Before Guerral had gotten even halfway through that last sentence, though, Illyana's well-sharpened mind had detected the traces of his real motivations. She'd heard hidden messages in his words; what he'd said, and what he hadn't said. He was obviously being told to stop her from entering that circle by someone, however, she drew only the obvious conclusion from that information; Belasco was trying to stunt her growth in power, despite what he'd told her in the ruins of Kordul.

"Get out of my way." Illyana said icily, but Guerral refused to move.

However, Illyana was unwilling to give the old daemon a second warning. Quickly, she slugged him across the face, too quickly for him to react. Indeed, the bracelet had increased her powers vastly. Where once she'd been unable to land a single blow on him even while using her full enchantments, she suddenly found herself powerful enough to bat him away as if he were nothing. It was encouraging, to say the least, but it didn't change her mind about what she wanted to do next. If one weapon of power could cause such a change in her, another was worth the risk.

As Guerral collided helplessly with the ground, Illyana leapt into the second circle, and faded from all sight once again.

* * *

"Blast that miserable weakling." Belasco muttered from inside his castle, "There's nothing more that can be done but wait, and hope that she comes out alive. However, for the second circle, the odds of emerging alive are no better than the first. She probably won't survive it. What a disaster."

* * *

Once again, Illyana found herself tumbling through distinct, but unfamiliar sensations, with no memory of who or where she was. She knew only what the spell of power told her, and all of the memories that flooded into her mind were artificial ones.

Illyana found herself fending off the enemy alongside... alongside Masira. It was Masira; there was no question about that. She looked just the same as she had all those years ago, but her skill was far greater, and she fought with a power unlike any ally that Illyana had ever met.

Together, the two continued firing blasts of concentrated flame at their enemies from behind a large rock in the battlefield. They were outnumbered more than two to one, and their enemies were just as skilled as they were, but they were courageous and dedicated, both to one another and to the completion of their mission. They knew that if they didn't claim victory there, nothing else in their lives would matter.

Again and again, Illyana and Masira suffered wounds under enemy fire, and they couldn't really tell how badly their enemies were suffering. All they knew was that with their most faithful ally by their side, the wounds could never carry the taste of defeat. Comforted by one another's presence, they fought bravely on, until at last, the enemy fire ceased, and they were free to move on, into the cave. That was when each of them heard a booming voice, like a furious god following them from behind.

"You won't escape me, vermin! I will hunt you down and butcher you without mercy or remorse!"

"Masira, hurry!" Illyana exclaimed, and soon, both of them were inside the cave, and Illyana had used another spell to cause a rock slide over the cave entrance, closing it off from the outside world.

In seconds, Masira had lit up the hilt of her sword like a torch, and was leading the way further into the cave, which turned into a tunnel in the mountain just a little further in. Well aware that their pursuer would soon find them, in spite of all the measures she'd taken to prevent it, Illyana followed Masira closely.

Soon, the tunnel opened into a larger cavern, with a huge fountain in the center. All of the action and the flames they'd been wielding had made both of them extremely thirsty, but as they approached the fountain, they sensed a presence in the cave that they hadn't felt before.

"Halt!" said the voice furiously, "Stay where you are, scum, for this fountain is a fountain of power. It would quench a person's thirst, and also grant them power beyond power. However, no daemon may drink of it unless power is all that they desire."

Illyana wasn't sure what the voice meant by that, but it continued in just moments.

"If either of you insects wish to drink of this enchanted water, you must first prove your ruthlessness. I sense that you are closer to no one in this world than one another. One of you must die. Only then will the survivor be permitted to drink, and gain the power to vanquish he who pursues you."

Masira rushed for the fountain almost as soon as the voice said that, but with a burst of power, and a flash of light, she was flung back away from the water, coming to rest on the floor.

"One of you will die." the voice then said as Illyana heard the first blow of their adversary against the rocks that covered the cave entrance. With his strength, he'd be through in seconds, and even with their combined power, Illyana knew that she and Masira couldn't beat him. They needed the power of the fountain in a hurry. One of them needed to die, and since Masira lay on the floor, only barely conscious, the call was Illyana's to make.

"I can't." Illyana thought to herself, her fists glowing brightly with the magic spell that could end one of their lives, and save the other, "Even if I claim victory, what will it mean without any friends to share it with? How can I kill her in cold blood?"

For a moment, the temptation to blast off her own left arm, and just die from the loss of blood was great. In fact, it was the greatest temptation she'd ever felt. The idea of sacrificing her own life to save Masira did seem like the only thing she could do, but then, she heard the stones at the entrance being shattered, and realized that her pursuer was there. Her life was in almost immediate danger, and she had to take action quickly. In her panic, Illyana looked down at the body of her friend once more, and saw only the obstacle that she'd become; an obstacle to her survival, and an obstacle to greater power.

"You were the closest thing in the world that I had to be friend..." Illyana thought silently as she raised her hand, still shining with power, "but now you're in my way, and that won't do."

Then, there was a massive, fiery explosion, filled with the pain and liberation of a mind pushed even farther into the madness of Limbo, and when Illyana regained some sense of herself, she found that she was standing in front of the bridge, with a large, enchanted broadaxe falling into her hands.

* * *

Tolux and Proza looked out at the bridge in worry. Someone seemed to be crossing it, and it was the job of the two of them to test their strength, and if they were worthy, to bring them into the castle.

However, as the figure got closer, both daemons guarding that gate began to feel very confused and alarmed. The being crossing the bridge bore both an enchanted axe of strength and a bracer of sorcery, and yet she looked like merely a young, teenage girl with long, blond hair.

Quickly, both Tolux and Proza raised their weapons in one hand, and readied attack spells with the other. Either of them could have decimated a hundred daemon armies with relative ease, but the one they faced was Illyana Rasputin. As she reached the end of the bridge and approached the gate, they brought their weapons down against her, and in seconds, the limbs that were normally used to wield them fell to the ground, away from Illyana's new weapon; the axe. After that, all that was left for those two was blood and misery.

As Illyana stepped into the first entry halls of the Castle of Despair, still without having used her full power, she heard once again the sound of clapping, just as sarcastic as before. Once again, Belasco was behind her.

"I didn't expect you to ever get past my guards. You are, after all, a member of an inferior species. I though, I suppose, that your weaknesses and your original upbringing would make it impossible for you to reach the level of the daemons in my personal army. As you now are, I think that you could overcome sixty... maybe seventy percent of them in single combat."

Ignoring his words, Illyana rushed to the attack, bringing her full strength to the surface, unlocking her true power once again, and enhancing it even further with countless spells of strength that she'd mastered in the past. When her axe struck out against Belasco's flesh, she knew that it was a blow that could have cleaved mountains, and put deep chasms in the ground under their feet, but Belasco merely smiled in endless confidence, and seized the blade of the axe between his left thumb and forefinger, stopping Illyana in her tracks.

"However, to let one's ego seize control can be a dangerous thing." Belasco said, still smiling as he held the axe calmly, but firmly by its blade, "You are no amateur in the ways of Limbo. You must have learned the lesson of ego by now, or even used the ego of your enemies against them. I know I have."

"I'm not an amateur?" Illyana shouted, humiliated and infuriated by Belasco's calm arrogance, "If I'm not an amateur, then what have you done to my powers? What happened to my strength?"

"All the strength that you earned while usurping Gorath, fighting with Guerral, and claiming the weapons of Limbo still exists, and you're still wielding it." Belasco said, smiling as he spoke, "You should be proud to have earned such power. However, don't worry yourself with thoughts of my defeat. Believe me, such thoughts and worries are truly useless."

"Are you trying to tell me that you're invincible?" Illyana demanded, "Are you saying that you can't be defeated? Do you honestly expect me to swallow that load of...?"

However, just then, Belasco had vanished, to reappear right in front of Illyana, and tapped her in the forehead with a single finger. There was no magic in that light tap; no special enchantments or tricks, but Illyana felt her entire head being tenderized by the impact, as a short-lived jet of blood shot out from the spot he'd touched. Still, short-lived as the wound was destined to be, it was enough to make her feel disoriented and exhausted. In seconds, she'd fallen back to the floor, dropping the axe as she did so.

"There is no such thing" Belasco explained, "as true invincibility. Perhaps one day, I'll show you why firsthand. The only thing that matters is that I am so powerful, that you will never match my strength, even if you continue to improve for hundreds of years. But wait... humans have somewhat... limited lifespans, don't they?"

"Don't mock me..." Illyana muttered angrily, "Don't you mock me just because of your strength."

"Know your place and I'll mock you no longer." Belasco just replied, tossing the axe to her feet, "You can't defeat me. No one in Limbo can. That fact should come as no surprise, if you've heard the other daemons of my realm talking about me at any point, nor should you let yourself be disappointed by it. You should be proud of what you've accomplished, not discouraged."

"Proud..." Illyana muttered, "Proud of what, pray tell?"

"Why, proud of even making it into this castle. The inhabitants of Limbo are countless, and beyond the boundaries of this place, they die and die. Still, every once in a while, a true visionary and pioneer in magic or in strength will find this castle and enter it. That is what a daemon must be in order to even enter these walls, and even so, you are more powerful than most. Rejoice in this victory, because it yields many rewards, such as... well, such as a name that better fits your new life. 'Illyana' is so long-winded and alien, you know."

With those words, Belasco waved his left hand lightly, and Illyana found that her simple animal-skin clothes had been replaced by a tight-fitting, white outfit with sturdy boots and gloves. It was both strong and durable, like a very thin, but effective armor, and it gave in all the right places.

"So tell me," Belasco said, "what do you think of the name 'Magik?'"

* * *

It was impossible, not to mention unwise to trust any of the daemons of Limbo, much less their lord, but even if she couldn't trust Belasco, Magik swiftly began to understand him. She quickly understood the way he'd set up the tests and challenges to ensure that only those with a balance between self-control and ruthlessness acquired the power needed to become soldiers in his army, the way he'd designed his castle, with his mighty sorcery, to support and house those billions of gifted soldiers, in spite of its relatively small size. At least, on the outside, it had seemed too small to house billions. On the inside, however, that castle was like an entire world; huge, and filled with numerous daemons; soldiers, cooks, armorers, weapon-crafters, mages, enchanters... It was like an incalculably vast city, crafted solely for Belasco's convenience. Everything served its purpose, unlike the bloodthirsty, scorched, chaotic world that Magik had just emerged from. Of course, the people in that place were still daemons, and they were still everything that daemons are. They were cutthroat, vicious, and hellbent on getting what they wanted, even through murder, but each also seemed to have a firm understanding of their place in the world, and their duty. In some ways, that made the upper echelons of Limbo a cleaner place to live.

At the very least, wars between the daemons in the Castle of Despair were few and far between. Nearly all missions were assigned to individual soldiers, who could leave the castle and plunge through the armies of barbarians in the deeper parts of Limbo to accomplish whatever was needed.

However, although war was not common in the Castle of Despair, fighting was. Daemons would fight each other every single day in that castle; usually in the evening, although admittedly, it was more to release their aggression and guage their relative strength, than because they actually wanted to kill anyone. In their eyes, it was just what the soldiers of Belasco did.

Magik began to quickly feel less malice for those daemon soldiers, as she spent her time living among them, but she was also eager to determine her strength, relative to theirs, and in a short time, had come to the realization that the vast majority of them were weaker than she was. Perhaps, she thought, Belasco had given her too little credit when he'd said that seventy percent of his soldiers were weaker than her.

It was only then, faced with her own magnificent strength, and yet, her own total inadequacy, that Magik remembered the words of Dorgan.

"You must know enough by now to realize that the source of all strength is adversity..."

Adversity. Unfortunately, there was little true adversity in the life of a person who was stronger than all of her comrades, and although the thought had never occurred to Magik before, she quickly began to realize how brilliant it was. She'd been fighting all-out, against such powerful opponents for so long, that she'd never felt the need to take it easy on anyone before, but once she realized that she was too strong to really benefit from the evening battles when she fought them all-out, she decided to engage in the next tournament without using any of her spells; not even the ones she used to bolster her strength.

That decision on her part increased the difficulty of the battles enormously. Her enemies seemed able to take more punishment, and hit a great deal harder. By the end of the night, she'd lost another battle, but she could feel that she was already benefiting from the adversity of self-discipline.

* * *

Belasco watched with some disappointment, and perhaps a bit of relief, as Magik's strength seemed to stagnate during her time in his army. Days, weeks, and months went by, but she never seemed to do any better in the evening fights. Of course, she was still able to perform the missions assigned to her punctually, and she didn't seem to be getting a whole lot weaker either, but after improving so much in only a few years, Belasco had expected better of her.

Even Belasco didn't suspect that Magik was, in fact, not stagnating, but plotting; struggling to achieve a power beyond any other. After only one month of fighting without using spells, Magik had removed her bracelet, which had made it seem as if she were growing weaker. In reality, however, she was only becoming stronger and stronger. Five months after that, Magik had also begun fighting with a fake replica of her axe, that had none of her real axe's enchantments, and four months after that, she swept the fighting competitions between all of Belasco's soldiers. He seemed only marginally impressed by her feat.

"Took you long enough." Belasco said as Magik found him standing in front of her in the hallway, not long after the competition.

"Indeed." Magik just said. Of course, Belasco didn't know that she'd won the competition without using any enchanted weapons or spells to gain an advantage; a handicap that her opponents had surely not imposed upon themselves. He didn't know because, even if it had occurred to him to try to read Magik's thoughts, there was no guarantee that he would have been able to. She had several enchantments, subtle but powerful, surrounding her own mind, for the sole purpose of preventing anyone from reading it.

"Now that you've risen above this lot, I think it would be petty to refuse you a promotion." Belasco continued, "Unless you've got something better to do, I'll even show you around the upper floors of this place."

* * *

So it was that Magik received her first tour of the castle's highest floors. There were fancy lodgings, tailors and cooks for the greatest of Belasco's servants, and of course, for he himself. With Magik's victory, she'd earned a promotion to high general, and needed to be briefed on nearly everything being done by Belasco's armies. Belasco seemed to delegate much responsibility to his other high generals, and took some time to explain it all to Magik personally.

They were in a room that almost looked like it could have been made by humans. The major features of the room were a table in the room's center, and a few chairs stationed around it, although naturally, the chairs were made to look like the remains of dead beasts. It was nothing Magik hadn't been faced with for almost a year already, and before that, she'd been faced with real remains.

Magik took a seat at one end of the table, as Belasco seated himself at the table's head, and started speaking to her.

"I'm certain I don't need to tell you of the violent thoughts, feelings and actions of my people; the daemon race, do I?"

Magik gave no reply. None was really needed.

"I suppose that everything that's ever happened to us; our whole world, and how everything is set up, is all thanks to those base tendencies, but through them, we've learned a wisdom that other races seem to enjoy ignoring, or trying to fight against; truths about life and existence."

"What truths does bloodshed reveal?" Magik asked, confused, "It is what it is."

"That's it precisely!" Belasco said, "You see it as such an obvious thing, because of how long you've dwelled in Limbo, but there are people, even from your own homeworld, who would fiercely try to deny that the violent control their lives. In the end, the one with all the authority; at least in every world I've ever seen, has been the one with the largest army, the smallest conscience about killing, or the greatest physical power. Those kinds of people always rise to the highest positions of authority. It's... Well, it's inevitable. Frankly, that surprised me, once I learned the true nature of existence, but I'm getting ahead of myself."

Magik was fascinated to hear that Belasco knew the truth nature of reality, and more importantly, was willing to explain it to her. It was more than enough of an incentive to coax her into not interrupting him as he continued.

"Anyway, as I said," Belasco continued, "most species of creatures live just as I've told you, with the strongest, or best-equipped, or cleverest rising to power. Even so, there are some species who are simply foolish, and haven't embraced that existential truth. Humans, for instance, cordon each other off from all-out battles, using laws and meaningless social barriers. Ours is one of the few races that has truly come to grips with our place in existence, embracing the survivalist dogma inherent to the flesh we were born into; which must struggle for its survival. Do you understand what I mean?"

"I think so." Magik replied quickly.

"Of course, you were once such a person; unwilling to accept the nature of mortal flesh." Belasco continued, but there, Magik interrupted him.

"I was quick to realize how foolish I'd been."

"Precisely." Belasco said, "It is mere foolishness to attempt to deny that the nature of mortals is to cause suffering. It's simple fact, and everyone in my realm recognizes that; even the lowest scum. In a way, my people are in the perfect position to teach other races the truth. This thing called 'evil' is what mortals are most suited for."

"I half expected you to pull some nonsense, like trying to tell me that good and evil didn't really exist." Magik replied.

"Why should I do that?" Belasco asked, "You're not that stupid. After living in the realm of purest evil for so long, you never would have bought into such a transparent lie. Besides, I have no reason to lie to you. You're now one of my closest lieutenants, and you'll need to know everything that I do about our mission, if you're to be useful to me."

"You want to lead your army in an invasion of the planet Earth." Magik noted aloud, "You plan to transform it into an outpost of Limbo."

"I guess it was pretty obvious." Belasco replied with a chuckle.

"You basically said as much to me when we first spoke," Magik explained, "telling me that Earth would become a magical place, like your own realm. At the time, I didn't know what magic was, but now that I do..."

"You understand that I have never truly lied to you." Belasco interrupted, "Very good. That's the first step. There will come a time, when I will ask you to move to the head of one of my armies, and lead them in invading the planet Earth. Don't take the earthlings lightly. Most of them are indeed weak and foolish, but they have a few strong champions who might pose a threat."

"While we're carrying out the invasion, what will you be doing?" Magik asked, and in response, Belasco waved one hand, and suddenly, the two found themselves standing in the middle of an open field; a green field, like those of Earth, but it yielded no power, so Magik was beginning to lose her appreciation for its beauty.

Of course, it was just an illusion. They weren't really on Earth. She knew that almost as soon as the image appeared, and in moments, it had begun shrinking, until the two were standing in mid-air, watching it all shrink away underneath them. Fields, towns, rivers, and even continents fell away, then the planet earth shrunk to a mere speck in its own solar system, with the star Sol burning brightly off to one side. As that too shrunk away, Magik could see the many light years of distance between the stars, the nearest stars to Sol, and at last, after almost thirty seconds, the other stars on the edge of the galaxy, then larger sections of the galaxy, then the whole galaxy. After that, the galaxy shrunk away as well, to become one mere speck among millions. All of those galaxies faded into a simple haze of light and darkness, which resolved itself into a reflective bauble. That bauble, however, also shrunk away, one among many, as hundreds, then thousands appeared. Soon, there were too many for Magik to count, and they also continued to shrink and shrink, in time becoming virtually invisible, as they made up part of a massive, round creature that looked like a cell with three nuclei. Magik had never seen anything even remotely so powerful or impressive. Indeed, it was not possible to see anything as powerful as that being.

"Who... or what is that?" Magik asked, finally finding the strength to form words.

"It's called the All, by some races." Belasco said, "Others refer to it as God. Still others prefer to make reference only to its power, by labeling it 'the One Above All.' It is the challenge of countless lifetimes."

"What do you mean?" Magik asked, "If I understand what I've just seen, this being contains and shifts countless universes. How can it be something to challenge?"

"Because Limbo is outside of its jurisdiction." Belasco replied, "At the dawn of time, many worlds were formed inside of this great, vast being, and many mighty beings were formed to serve it. Some worlds and beings, however, were discontented with servitude, and wanted the power to sculpt universes of their own. Many of those beings turned against the All, and many of those worlds opposed it so vehemently, that they fell away from it. As it turned out, however, that proved to be a blessing in disguise. Expelled from the presence of the All, Limbo's inhabitants suffer agony greater than any ever imagined by other races, but they also live outside of its influence, and can continue to build their own power to new heights without its knowledge or support. That is what it means to be a daemon; we struggle to wage a war, to prove that suffering is the true nature of the mortals that the All has created. However, the daemon leader's task is much harder; gathering strength sufficient to stop the All, if it should try to reabsorb Limbo. As yet, I don't have such strength, but I know that there are ways of obtaining it, and I will continue to struggle towards that objective until I do."

Of course, it was just as impossible to be inspired by a daemon, as it was to trust them, but again, Magik found that she understood Belasco, as the vision of the All faded, and they were back in Belasco's meeting room.

"At this point," Belasco said, "I can teach you very little. You are a true pioneer in the daemon world, and so, any further advances in strength and magic must come from yourself. Devise them, design them, and invent them. That's the life of a high general of Limbo."

Then, Belasco had lead Magik to her room, and she'd been left alone with her thoughts once more. Of course, Belasco had lied to her just then, and perhaps for the first time, when he'd told her that he had nothing more to teach her. He must have held some secrets that she lacked, but before she challenged him in any way, she wanted to be absolutely certain that she was at least the second strongest being in Limbo.

* * *

Magik didn't typically use her authority over the other daemons for much during her time as high general, but when she needed to, she was quite capable of adapting to the chain of command. She'd soon developed an entire network of informants among her subordinates, whose job it was to bring her news of anyone in the castle who might he stronger than she was. Of those, the most prominent seemed to be M'Ballam, N'astirh and Sym, and of them, Sym was agreed to be the most powerful. Of course, no one ever became any stronger without adversity, so Magik decided that it was Sym she would approach, doing so without her axe or bracelet to enhance her power. She was convinced that she was ready to face him, even if she had to use her magic to truly prevail.

When Sym agreed to speak with Magik, it was the first time she'd ever seen him up close. He certainly did look like a powerful daemon. He was eight feet tall, with large, bulging muscles, and light purple skin. Sym also had a long tail, and a fin that traveled up along his back, coming to an end on the top of his head, and he wore a brown vest, and black pants, though he went barefoot. He seemed to enjoy smoking, and to be immune to its negative side-effects, because when Magik used a spell to peer inside of him, he didn't look like he was suffering any lung ailments, and yet, whenever she saw him, he always had a thick cigar wedged into his mouth, smoke rising from its end. When Magik met with him in his chamber, he was seated in a large, wide chair that could have contained a daemon twice his size, and looked as if he were trying to relax.

"Let's not beat around the bush, Sym." Magik said almost as soon as she'd entered his chamber and closed the door, "Belasco is stronger than either of us."

"He's stronger than both of us." Sym corrected her, "Even if everybody in Limbo ganged up on the guy, they'd all lose."

"That's because no one has the strength to challenge him." Magik said, "Do you ever train with N'astirh or M'ballam?"

"Nah." Sym muttered, "They ain't on my level."

The reply surprised Magik a little, and for a moment, she wondered if it might not have been wise to challenge M'ballam instead, but finally, she said "Then train with me."

Sym looked surprised for a moment, then said, "You think you can beat me, kid?"

"If I can't even come close to beating you, I'll have more work to do than I thought." Magik replied, "But at least then, I'll know where I stand. If I don't gain that knowledge, nothing else that I do will matter."

"Okay, kid." Sym said, getting to his feet "Show me what you've got."

In a flash, Magik was in the air, and floored Sym with a single kick.

The large daemon crashed to the ground with a thud, and Magik looked at him in surprise. It was hard to believe that it could have been that easy, after all she'd heard about Sym's strength, but sure enough, in moments, he was getting up; rubbing his head a little.

"Wasn't expecting that." he said, "Alright. Guess I'd better get serious this time."

At once, there was a trembling in the room around them, and Magik realized that Sym was using some strange kind of daemon power. As he lumbered forward in her direction, however, his footfalls were like claps of thunder, and she realized quickly that whatever special ability he'd just used, it was increasing his strength severalfold.

As Sym rushed forward, Magik tried to block off his attack, but in the moment before the punch connected, she felt the strength of Sym's momentum. In the air, there was the vibration of powerful muscles grinding together. That was when Magik knew that Sym's enhanced strength had made him more powerful than her.

The blow hit her like a ton of bricks, knocking her back against the wall of Sym's chamber. The castle trembled under the onslaught of such power, and Magik could feel both her back and ribs at nearly the breaking point from that simple attack. She'd suspected that Sym was able to enhance his own strength, but she'd never expected him to gain as much power as that.

"C'mon, you rotten scum!" Sym exclaimed furiously as Magik fell to the floor, "Stop taking it easy on me! Show me your real power!"

Magik felt a little worried when she heard him say that. It was usually hard to determine when someone was holding back their full power, but Sym, it seemed, had figured her out. He was right, too. Sym wasn't the kind of opponent she could afford to take it easy on. She didn't have either of her power-enhancing items on her person, but she'd definitely need to use her magic to win.

"How did you know I was taking it easy?" Magik asked.

"You ain't cast any obvious spells yet." Sym replied, "I don't see no fire or lightning yet. Plus, most daemons have a magic aura when they fight."

"Yeah, if they're stupid." Magik retorted, "Hiding my visible aura was one of the first tricks I learned. Auras tell your enemies too much about you. I could go all-out at full power right now, and you'd never be able to tell the difference by looking at me."

"In this case, though..." Magik said, a broad grin forming over her features, "you're right. I haven't even finished warming up."

True to her word, Magik simply stood in place for several seconds, looking at Sym. He felt no trembling in the earth, as when he powered up, and no visible aura formed. He couldn't tell the difference between her strength then, and her strength a moment before, but suddenly, she seemed to fade away before his very eyes, and Sym felt a blow knock his head to one side; a punch so hard, that its mere vibrations shattered the stone of the surrounding walls...

* * *

Belasco was handing out orders to a few of his other high generals for things he personally wanted done; plans to be made and precautions to be taken, when suddenly, a shadow fell into his throne room from the door to one of the outside hallways, as the curtain that normally covered it was drawn back with one hand. The sight that Belasco saw then was like nothing he'd ever expected to see.

It was Magik. She was dressed in the same white outfit he'd given her upon her arrival at the castle, and she had an axe slung across her back. One of her hands was free, and it was with that hand that she'd drawn back the curtain, but the other hand... In the other hand was Sym. She was dragging Sym's unconscious body along the floor by his head.

"Is this really all that you can offer me?" Magik demanded as she flung the eight-foot daemon effortlessly before Belasco with a crash.

At once, Belasco turned on his servants, commanding "Begone!" and not daring to disobey, they seemed to just vanish in flashes of light.

Belasco waved his hands, and walls of stone rose up over the curtained entryways to his throne room, Magik wasn't sure what Belasco was getting at, but he was obviously worried. She could tell that. He was trying not to show it, but something about Magik's victory over Sym had upset him terribly.

"By the law of our land..." Belasco said aloud as he glared at Magik, "You will now rise to a position second only to my own. You are also heir to the throne of Limbo if I should be slain somehow. Is that what you wanted to ask me?"

Truthfully, Magik had been hoping that Belasco was not really so much stronger than Sym, but when he'd asked her that last question, he'd let his magic aura expand for a fraction of a second. As Magik had expected, it was indeed stronger than her own, but what really worried her was how highly organized Belasco's magic was. It seemed to be several times more focused and complex than any other force of magic she'd ever felt, and that was when Magik knew that it was still not the time to challenge him. She needed even greater strength. Not much, but a little. She could get that training with the other high generals without using her full power. However, what she really needed were Belasco's secrets.

* * *

Precious little additional research was needed before Magik set in motion her next plan for the acquisition of power. She had a little time to herself as the new second in command of Limbo, and she used that time carefully in developing two new magical feats that she'd never learned before. One was an enchantment for unlocking doors. She embedded it into a tiny amulet that she began wearing around her neck. The other spell that she designed was intended to give her the ability to absorb and memorize information from books almost instantly. All she had to do was touch them. She practiced both feats over the course of two weeks, making sure that nothing was left to chance. She needed to get it right the first time, and Belasco couldn't find out. He'd already begun trying to read her mind, although fortunately, he'd failed. Still, it proved that Belasco was becoming suspicious of Magik. She needed to tread carefully if she wanted her victory.

At last, the moment came when Belasco left his own quarters unguarded. He left the castle in the blink of an eye, to tend to some important matter on the far side of Limbo, which gave Magik the chance she'd been looking for. Quickly, she rushed to his quarters and used her amulet to unlock its door, locking it again on the way through.

Belasco's whole chamber was full of books, potions, and enchanted weapons of one sort or another. Three tables had been set in the middle of the room for writing and experimenting, and Magik understood the functions of most of the things she saw. All of it, naturally, was for power. Belasco was a daemon who hadn't rested on his laurels, nor was he any kind of fool. If he ever chose to turn on Magik, he would clearly do it when he'd devised some spell specifically intended to defeat her.

Quickly, Magik activated her newest spell and brushed her fingers along the bottoms of the books on the nearby shelves. A wealth of information flooded into her mind all at once; new spells, enchantments, potions and curses, all developed by Belasco. He'd even described the process by which each had been created in those books. It was about as much as she could have hoped for. However, there was one book still on the table in the room's center that she hadn't yet touched, and when she laid her hand on it, she gasped in shock and delight, because it was the journal of Belasco. Most of the entries were magic-oriented, or to do with the ordinary business of managing Limbo and struggling for power, but Magik also found entries contained in the book, that piqued her interest. One of them, in particular, filled her with hope.

"Three thousand, four hundred, seventy-two years, one hundred forty-seven days since my rise to power." the journal entry had read, "I believe that I have happened upon the solution to my problems, and discovered the power source used by the All. In the realm of Earth, there are beings known as humans, who have a substance called a soul associated with each of them. If I can acquire these souls for myself, my power will grow incalculably. Of course, daemons can't travel to other worlds by magic alone, but I believe that I've found a solution to that as well. Humans are beginning to develop special abilities, just as daemons do, and my studies in divination have informed me that one of these; a mere little girl named Illyana Rasputin, will one day develop the mutant ability to travel to other realms. That class of teleportation is rare on any world, and it's precisely what I need. Plans are already set in motion to bring her to Limbo. I can't be certain whether she'll be able to survive here, but if she does, she'll see things my way, and in time, I'll make use of her power to take my armies to the planet Earth. This plan will require patience, but that's something that I have plenty of."

Satisfied with the knowledge that she'd gained, Magik had left the chamber of the daemon king and returned to her own chamber, her head filled with new information, new spells and new hope. There were lots of fresh incantations that she wanted to practice, and abilities she wanted to gain, but in the end, if she had enough time to finish mastering those spells, she'd soon have all the power that Belasco did and, she realized, more.

* * *

Of course, there was one more thing that Magik wanted to know. She knew it would be risky to question Belasco directly about the composition of the human soul, since it might arouse his suspicions prematurely, so she carefully planned out her questions in advance, trying to make them subtle and convincing.

However, as it turned out, no interrogation of Belasco was necessary. A mere week after Magik had raided his room for information, Belasco called a meeting of all the high generals on the subject of the impending invasion of the planet Earth. At the meeting, Belasco described the continents, languages, and species of planet Earth, and what kind of threat each posed in detail. He described the technology and weapons of human beings, far weaker than Limbo's magic, and in particular, he described to them all what he'd learned of the champions of Earth. Based on all that information, and the apparent destruction of one of Earth's teams of heroes, Magik was convinced that any one of those gathered could have conquered the entire planet relatively quickly. Soon, the time came to ask questions, and Magik was one of the quickest to speak up.

"I'm not going to oppose you in this, Lord Belasco, but I'd like a little something to motivate the troops with. From what you've told me so far, we're invading this world so that we can teach these fools the truth. In other words; a mission of charity. I don't mind telling you that reason won't inspire too many of our warriors."

"In other words, 'why are we bothering with planet Earth?'" Belasco said with a broad smile, "A valid question. You're quite right, of course. I can justify our cause easily with my reasons about the truth, but the real reason we're going to Earth is to acquire something that the humans have, which can make us several times more powerful."

Magik grinned as Belasco began to explain himself. It was the last piece of information that she wanted from him.

"It's not for nothing that I want to claim the Earth." Belasco said, "You see, in my studies, I've learned that humans are ideal for experimenting on. They have these items... these slivers of their substance called souls, which, when properly harnessed, represent power beyond that of any daemon or any spell. Even a tiny, microscopic speck of a soul contains enough power to overwhelm any spell or enchantment in the daemon world completely."

Magik was just about to speak up again when, to her relief, N'astirh voiced the very question she'd been meaning to ask.

"Lord Belasco, when you say that these humans are ideal for experiments, I take that to mean you haven't yet worked out how to harness the power of these 'souls.'"

"Actually, I have worked it out." Belasco replied with a smile, "However, I'll still need to put my carefully-gathered information to the test. I'll refer to that as an experiment until I've seen the power of a soul with my own eyes."

"Strange..." Magik muttered, "I've been in Limbo for many years, and I've suffered every kind of injury I can imagine, but I've never seen anything inside this human body of mine that could have such power."

"I never said it was part of the human body." Belasco said, "I said it was a sliver of a human's substance. For the moment, that's all the information you should need to motivate the troops. Describe to them the massive power that we seek, and I'm sure they'll be impressed."

* * *

Less than five minutes later, the meeting came to an end, and the high generals; each with their own orders to carry out in the final days before the invasion, filed out of the room quickly. Magik was the last to leave. As the second in command of Limbo's forces, it was her duty, and her right to be the last one out; the one whose back was never turned. However, just as she was about to leave the room, she heard Belasco's voice, and froze in worry.

"Magik... there's something we need to discuss."

Magik turned quickly to face Belasco. She was very much afraid of him, but she held her fear in check.

"Obviously, the invasion of Earth is an important matter for me, and for Limbo. It won't make me happy if you attempt to sabotage it."

"Are you implying that I have some loyalty to my homeworld?" Magik asked derisively, "Really, milord. I thought you'd come to know me better than that."

"So I would think..." Belasco noted, "I've discussed the ways of Limbo with you before, and you seemed to understand the reason for it all. Still, if you bare some lingering desire for the compassion of your old life..."

"Compassion is a deceit, that people use to blind themselves to the truth of their existence." Magik said, and she meant every word of it, "If I wanted deception, there are many kinds that would make me stronger, rather than weaker, and all of them can be found here."

"Then you no longer begrudge Limbo the pain and misery that you've endured." Belasco noted with a smile.

"I glory in my pain and misery." Magik replied with a wicked grin of her own, "It reminds me, time and again, of my power, and the fact that I worked hard for every speck of it. That is a satisfaction beyond mere transitory feelings. I wouldn't give it up for the world... any world."

"That's... reassuring." Belasco replied, still grinning, "I ask you these things because although I've been unable to read your future, or my own after this year, I'm almost certain that it will be Earth that attempts an invasion of Limbo first. If so, it will be your task to annihilate whatever army the earthlings bring to bare against us. I wish them to be impressed by their opposition, and perhaps even feel a bit at home before their inevitable demise. You can accomplish both of those things, I trust."

"If I can't, none of your daemons can." Magik replied with a sneer.

"You may go." Belasco said, then he stepped into the shadows, and was gone.

* * *

That night, Magik sat on the floor of her chamber, and thought about what Belasco had said about souls. A part of human substance, but not a part of their body. That could mean that they were a bit like magic; dwelling in a non-material sense, alongside the body. Of course, it was very unlikely that the soul was a type of magic, or Illyana, in all her time practicing spells, would have sensed it, so instead, she began to use her magic to feel around through various levels of space, in time even feeling into other worlds entirely, until she found something immensely powerful attached to herself in another world, and realized that the overthrowing of Belasco was only a matter of time.

* * *

"The rest of the story went in about the way you'd expect it to." Illyana said to Elsa, who was laying almost horizontally on the couch by that point, just staring off into space as she imagined the horrible world that Illyana had spent her teenage years in, "In the end, Earth invaded Limbo, but rather than an army, there were only seven invaders, and my older brother was among them. As it turned out, for every three years that I experienced in Limbo, my brother lived only one, so when we met, I was almost as old as he was. Even so, I fought them, because I knew that they were just being foolish, but I'd forgotten how much value humans attach to one another's lives. I murdered one of my brother's friends, and in retaliation, he not only displayed utter contempt for the person I'd become, but he reminded me of the one thing that was most important. He told me that Limbo's daemons would always struggle for power more than anything, and that it was a path that I too was being enslaved to. He reminded me that the ability to choose mercy is also a power, and should not be thrown so carelessly away. I took those words to heart, and when I defeated Belasco, I chose not to kill him. I even used his amulet to restore Piotr's friend to life, just to prove that I still could. Frankly, I'd started to doubt my ability to do right myself. After all, am I not the queen of all daemons?"

Elsa was trembling by that point; nervous and defeated. Illyana's story was morbid, and full of disturbing images, and almost nothing else, but it seemed very unlikely that a girl like her should invent such a dark and terrifying story all by herself. Elsa wondered, for a moment, if maybe slapping herself across the face would help her to regain her senses. After all, nothing about Illyana's story was even slightly possible. Elsa would just have to pull herself together, and schedule another meeting later on... maybe do some more studying in abnormal psychology in the interim. Even though it had only been a story, it had shaken Elsa horribly.

"I'm afraid we're out of time." Elsa said, though she was unable to give Illyana a smile, and Illyana was clearly making no effort to smile at her, "Let's have another appointment... in a couple weeks. How's the fourteenth for you?"

"Any previous obligations that I might have can be shoved to one side." Illyana replied, "This takes priority."

"Um... Goodbye then." Elsa just said, not sure what else to say.

Illyana said nothing, but got to her feet and opened the door out, leaving Elsa's office quickly, and Elsa rapidly collapsed back into her armchair once the girl had left. Still, just the idea of sitting in that chair, that had been so recently inhabited by that creepy teenager made her feel uncomfortable, so in a few moments, she'd gotten back up, and decided to reschedule the rest of her appointments for the day.

Quickly, Elsa stepped outside of her office, and closed the door behind her, then pulled out her cell phone, and dialed Marian; the lady who managed most of her appointments.

"Marian, I need you to cancel the rest of my appointments for today. That last one really took it out of me."

Marian sounded very surprised by that over the phone.

"Wasn't your last appointment Illyana Rasputin?"

"That's her." Elsa confirmed.

"Wow." Marian muttered, "I never thought I'd hear about someone so young getting under your skin like that."

"She's... she's not that young. She's got to be in her late teens, right?" Elsa asked, already feeling a little confused.

"Huh?" Marian asked, "No. No, she's twelve."

At once, all the color drained from Elsa's face. There was no way the girl she'd just spent over an hour talking to was less than sixteen.

"There must be some mistake. Maybe I got the wrong girl." Elsa said into the phone, "Are you sure about her age? I mean, is there proof?"

"Her brother supplied the insurance company with a birth certificate." Marian said, "She's definitely only twelve years old."

"I'll... I'll want to see a copy of that birth certificate..." Elsa muttered in worry, "Fax it to me first thing in the morning. I have to see this."

* * *

Three days after Illyana's first meeting with Elsa, Piotr Rasputin received a call at the Xavier Institute.

"Mister Rasputin..." the voice at the other end said, "Hello. It's Marian again."

"Marian!" Piotr exclaimed, "Thank God. I have been hoping to hear from you."

"It's bad news, I'm afraid." Marian said, "I don't think Elsa will be seeing Illyana again. At least not for a while."

"That is unacceptable." Piotr said, suddenly growing quite stern, "My sister requires counseling. It is most important that she..."

"I'm sorry. There's nothing I can do." Marian replied sadly, "I could try to set you up with a different counselor, but Elsa's got problems of her own right now."

"What are you talking about?" Piotr demanded, prompting a deep sigh from Marian.

"Well, Elsa wouldn't want me talking about this, but just after that last appointment with Illyana, the two of us got into a short debate over your sister's age. She couldn't believe your sister was twelve, so I faxed her a copy of her birth certificate. I don't know why, but it seems like she started panicking a lot after that, losing her temper with the patients, telling them that it was all meaningless, and nothing would save them, and those were the good points. Last I heard, she was looking for therapy herself. I don't think she can help your sister, Mister Rasputin. Now... did you want me to help you find another counselor?"

Piotr had to stop and think about that, but in the end, the answer was no. Professor Xavier could help Elsa to recover from what had happened; make her forget about Illyana, and everything she'd been told, but it was all the evidence Piotr needed to convince him that Illyana was not the type of person that therapists and counselors are trained to help. She was much too dangerous a person for them. That meant, once again, that it was Piotr's job to do what he could to help his sister adjust. That was, in his mind, a part of his obligation as a good brother.

So Piotr hung up the phone that day, and began the trek upstairs to his sister's room. He had a hard task ahead of him.

* * *

End

* * *

Well, that's it. I'm sure many of you now see why I hesitated to post this. Even so, from the deepest darkness, there may shine the brightest of lights, and for December, you'll all get a nice little Christmas present; the very first issue of X-men Neo. A new mutant has made his appearance, and his powers are amazing, and potentially-dangerous, but will he side with the X-men, or will he chose to honor the one who claims to be his father; the mutant terrorist Magneto?


	17. X Men 1: The Oppression of Fear

X-Men Neo

Issue 1

"The Oppression of Fear"

* * *

Sharp, stabbing pain shot through Pietro's face from the left cheek outward as he fell to the ground, a small cloud of dirt forming in the air around him where he'd landed. It wasn't the first time he'd been picked on. Pietro's white hair color was a popular target for the scorn of the other teenagers, and far, far too many of them were willing to show that scorn. High schoolers tended to be like that; picking on anyone who looked different or seemed strange. Pietro had been on the receiving end of that tendency his whole life.

"Careful, old man." Chris said, clenching his fists even tighter as he looked down at Pietro, "You might break a hip. Heh."

Of course, the boy's words were only intended to tease Pietro, poking fun at the smaller boy's hair color. In every other respect, Pietro was an ordinary teenage boy, or at least, he thought he was. Pietro would have loved to slug Chris back for what he'd done, but he wasn't much of a fighter. There was only one thing he could do that nobody else could do quite so well, and that was run. He was a very fast runner, and he always made the best time on the track by at least five seconds; often more. He could have outrun anyone attending or teaching at that school, and was thinking of focusing on track and field in his future schooling, in the hopes of becoming a professional athlete. He wasn't sure if he could make it, but it was all he really had going for him, and maybe, just maybe, it would give him a means of escaping from jerks like Chris once and for all.

However, for the moment, Pietro said nothing. He had no civilized words to speak to Chris, and his father had always taught him to be civilized.

Django Maximoff had no wife. She'd died only a few months after Pietro had been adopted. Pietro didn't know much else about his real origins. He'd never really had a mother, or any other prominent women in his life. All he was, he'd become thanks to Django's kindness and civility.

"Always be a civilized man, even when others refuse to be." Django had told him one day when questioned about his own boundless mercy towards others, "There's peace for a man who brings nothing but peace to the world. If you're civilized, you can find peace, even if no one else wants it."

Unfortunately, too often, that wasn't the case. Others, who didn't want peace, did indeed intrude upon Pietro's life, using cruelty, malice, and brute force to have their way. Though Pietro had obediently followed Django's teachings, he secretly longed to punish evildoers and violent men for their sins. He couldn't possibly have known just how soon he'd get his chance, however.

"Not talking, huh?" Chris asked, clearly growing angrier, and even more bored with every passing second, "Open that mouth, so I can shove my fist down it!"

Then Chris drove his fist back down towards Pietro Maximoff, and he wished with all his might that he could have stopped such bullies at least once.

However, Pietro waited and waited, and the attack didn't come. When Pietro looked back up at Chris, he found, to his surprise and disbelief, that Chris was frozen where he was. He wasn't moving at all, or at least, he didn't look as if he was.

Pietro was absolutely amazed as he got to his feet, looking at Chris in shock. Chris was still staring at where he'd just been sitting on the ground, and he still had his fist in position, as if about to strike. However, he wasn't moving, and... and Pietro was.

It was so strange. Pietro looked around to see if anyone else had noticed that Chris was frozen, but from the looks of things, everyone else in the schoolyard was also standing just as still as Chris, in some cases frozen in the act of talking, playing, or as in his case, picking on one another. Of all the people in the schoolyard; maybe even in the whole world, Pietro was the only one who was visibly moving.

Of course, the thought that he might be the only one left on Earth who wasn't completely frozen worried Pietro. It would be just like being completely alone for the rest of his life. However, he felt the pain still fresh in his cheek, and knew that there was at least one thing he wanted to do, even if everyone was really frozen for good. Stepping off to one side, away from Chris, Pietro slugged him hard across his face, turning his head around with the impact. Then, in just another moment, Pietro brought both fists down against the back of Chris's neck, shoving him forward, and moving around to the other side, drove his knee into Chris's midsection hard, then raised one foot, and pushed him sideways through the air. Chris seemed to lose momentum in midair, and eventually came to an almost complete stop just a foot or so from the ground. Even so, the act had been a cathartic one for Pietro, and he started to think a little more carefully about his situation; no longer distracted by the burning desire for revenge.

If the people around Pietro weren't frozen, they were at least moving a lot slower than he was, or maybe it was just that he was moving faster. It had seemed to happen so suddenly, but, he wondered, was there a way to undo it? If he was just moving incredibly fast, could he somehow make himself move slowly again?

Pietro wasn't sure what he'd done that could have caused him to start moving so fast. He remembered wishing that he could have stopped Chris, and that certainly seemed to have happened. If that was what had caused the strange changes; if he really had the power to make his wishes come true, could he un-wish it; just wish for everyone to start moving again? It was worth a shot, so Pietro closed his eyes, and wished for everything to start again; he wished for people to start moving; for time to resume its normal flow, and that was when he heard the sound of a well-beaten body behind him collapsing to the ground.

* * *

All during the classes that followed his fight with Chris, Pietro had practiced in the use of his new powers. He was certain by the end of the day that he had the ability to increase the speed at which his body and mind operated, to the point where everything else seemed to be frozen in place. He could use that special ability to think, move, and react at speeds much greater than anyone else, and it was just the kind of advantage he'd been looking for. By the time school was over, Pietro hadn't learned much from the day's classes, except how to use his special powers. He'd spent virtually the entire class discreetly using his powers to speed up and slow down again at will, so he'd barely understood a word the teacher had said, but as he ran home that day, he was confident and proud. Pietro had the power of inhuman speed, and he could turn it on and off like a light switch by then. In fact, it was like driving a car. Once he got used to it, he didn't even have to think about when and how he used it.

The jog home was, not surprisingly, a very different kind of experience from what Pietro was used to. All around him, people, animals, and even cars and trucks had slowed to a crawl as he ran full-tilt through the streets, faster and faster, until he could feel the specks of dust and small pieces of dirt in the air around him hitting him hard from the front. To normal people, traveling at normal speeds, those specks of grit would have been harmless; going virtually unnoticed as they bounced easily off their skin. However, when one was running faster than any train or subway, those same bits of dirt and grit began to bear a great deal of resemblance to tiny bullets, and on that first jog home, Pietro Maximoff was "shot" with one.

It wasn't much of a shot. In general, he got off easy. A tiny speck of dirt had shot through one of his arms along its very edge, putting a tiny, almost-imperceptible cut in his arm. He stopped where he was at once, in response. It didn't make the pain go away, but it had at least become fairly obvious to him that there were inherent dangers to his strange, new power, that he'd need to work to overcome.

Of course, Pietro had pretty much all the time in the world, and he knew it. Even a single jog home from school could be stretched into a an entire afternoon's worth of practice in the use of his powers, so Pietro started to practice with his speed, varying his breathing, and vibrating his muscles, both with and against the wind flows around him, determined to find some means of resisting the tiny projectiles that had quickly become such a threat to him.

By the time that Pietro got back to his house, five minutes after he'd left school, however, he'd solved that problem. The trick was to just keep moving his muscles fast enough to bounce the tiny particles of dirt and dust off his skin, though not being a physics major, he never would have anticipated the need to do that, in order to run with incredible speed.

Slowing down to ordinary speed, just outside his front door, Pietro threw it open with a smile, and shouted in a voice full of greater joy than he'd felt in years "Father! You'll never guess what happened today!"

* * *

Pietro had always been a relatively ordinary little boy, in spite of his white hair. Nothing really interesting or incredible had ever happened to him, and like every boy who suffers through the Hell that is normality, he'd sometimes wished for something really amazing to change his life forever, but on that night, when he showed Django Maximoff his special power, moving with inhuman speed from one section of the room to the next, he could see a mixture of awe and fear in the older man's eyes. Django hadn't been expecting anything like that, but unlike Pietro, he wasn't sure if he could cope with it, and he was worried that Pietro's power would bring them tragedy.

"I... I don't know what to say." Django admitted when Pietro finally slowed down, "I'd like to think that you're a gift from God, but there is a risk to every power. You see, those with power are often corrupted by it, and even those with no great power of their own sometimes lose themselves in baser desires, and selfish tendencies. This is a big world, Pietro, and you're not the only person in it with strange powers. In spite of all you've managed to discover about yourself, I'd urge you to be careful who sees you using this power. If others discover that you have it, they might try to do harm to us."

"But why would anyone want to hurt us just because I have some special powers?" Pietro asked, confused.

"Because" Django replied, "people are often afraid, or jealous of anyone or anything more powerful than themselves. For hundreds of years, people in this town feared vampires; not because there were really any vampires who meant to do them harm, but because the idea of any intelligent creature being more powerful than an ordinary human being was a terrifying one to them. People in Greece feared and obeyed the mythical gods for the same reason. If they see that you have a power that they lack, they'll almost definitely become afraid, and may even try to destroy you, and everyone you care about. I'd always advise caution and great care, no matter what situation you're in, but this power makes the need for caution that much more pressing. Please, Pietro... Tell no one else of this."

Pietro had agreed to Django's request, and that night, he went to bed with a lot more to think about.

* * *

Of course, Pietro hadn't expected everything to work itself out from then on, but in spite of Django's warning, he also hadn't expected things to get that much worse. It was only three weeks after he'd been told to try to keep a low profile, when he rounded the corner towards his house, and found himself in the midst of a disaster. Pietro had heard rumors of attempted and successful arson across town during the past week, but he'd never expected his house to be hit. There were large flames covering the west wall of the house, and Pietro could feel their heat oppressively as he looked on from the street corner. He knew that Django would be home at that point, and wanted to make certain that he was safe, so he quickly rushed to the house, ducking under the smoke, as he dashed through one room after another, searching the various nooks and crannies in the blink of an eye, until he found Django, outside the house and trying to hook up the garden hose. Even so, Pietro didn't like the idea of leaving his father to fight that horrible blaze by himself.

Quickly, Pietro picked up a small, metal bucket from one of the closets inside the house, and did the one thing that he could do better than anyone; he ran. Pietro ran for over a mile to the nearest lake, then all the way back. In less than half a second, his trip was completed, and a bucket of water was thrown into the air, towards the blaze. Before it could even reach the fire, however, it was joined by two more buckets of water, from two separate trips, and by the time they'd touched down, five more had arrived. The neighbors watched in amazement. None of them could see Pietro; he was traveling much too fast for that. To them, it looked like a steady stream of water was appearing in the air, and splashing against the house, causing the flames to diminish, even as it did so. It was something that could only be described as a miracle. Even Django was stunned and puzzled by the sight, until the fire went out, and his son appeared around one corner of the house, holding the bucket he'd used for that amazing feat. Django had never been so proud of his boy.

Unfortunately, though, Django had realized at once what had happened when he saw his son holding that bucket. He wasn't the only one who'd suspected the true cause of the miracle. Of course, no one else could have known that his son had been running back and forth to the lake faster than the eye could follow. Many, however, had begun to suspect that there was something very strange and inhuman about Django and his son; something that was being hidden from them. The very idea that something so big and important was being kept a secret from them made them nervous, building up a tension inside of them, and that tension grew and grew over the course of the next week, until finally, it came to a head.

* * *

Word had gotten around about what had happened, and demands and accusations had both been leveled at Django and Pietro already. At school, Pietro had started to hear mutterings over his apparent "strange abilities," and although the bullies were staying clear of him for the time being, so was everyone else. It was just as Django had said. People weren't even certain that he had special powers; to them, it was little more than a suspicion, but even so, they were becoming afraid of him, and he couldn't make friends with any of them, as long as they felt that way.

Django, meanwhile, had been asked lots of questions, both at his job and in public. Those questions had started as mere casual inquiries, then become direct requests for information, which turned, in the end, into heavy-handed demands to know what had happened on the day of the fire, and what was going to happen in the future. He knew it wouldn't be long before the truth got out, but he didn't know what to do. Nothing he said or did could calm the people of that town, and if they knew the truth, the fear and paranoia would just grow worse. As much as Django hated the thought, Pietro's powers, and the good deed he'd done were destroying his life, and there was nothing Django could do to protect him anymore.

Eight days after the fire, a group of over a dozen people from all across town took matters into their own hands. Arriving at Django's doorstep with suspicious looks on their faces, and quite ready to get violent with him, they knocked hard on his front door, and demanded to be let in. It would still be a few minutes before school got out, so Pietro wasn't home yet, but they realized that Django knew what was going on, and they intended to find out from him by any means necessary.

Django had tried to talk some sense into them through closed doors, but none of them wanted to listen to him. They'd surrendered to their suspicion and fear, and it had consumed them. Soon, the group of disgruntled neighbors had become an angry mob, and Django was rushing to the kitchen, calling the police.

* * *

Professor Xavier's head turned around sharply, as he realized, for the first time, the cause of the building panic in several neighborhoods in eastern Romania, focusing his thoughts more carefully on the specific people those feelings were centered on. There were two, and one of them was clearly a mutant. Something had to be done. The only question was whether those two people in need could be reached in time.

Professor Xavier tried to use his powers to discreetly calm the mob, but they were panicking over something they'd seen just over a week before. If he'd been in that town, he would have been able to alter their memories, but erasing people's memories, especially over a large area, was a difficult and complex job. It couldn't be done from such a great distance away.

There was only one chance. As little as Xavier liked the idea, he'd have to hope the X-men could handle the situation.

"X-men." Professor Xavier said silently into their thoughts, "There's a mutant who's in desperate need of our assistance at this very moment. I'm not certain if he can be reached in time, but we have to do whatever we can."

"You got it, Chuck." Logan said, running for the elevator.

In seconds, the X-men had reached the preparation chambers. Each stepped into their own tiny room; a little larger than a closet, and lit from above, and proceeded to change into their disguises and masks. Scott replaced his red sunglasses with a visor, and Logan positioned the holes on the backs of his gloves to fit just over the spots where his claws would emerge from his skin. At last, Henry Mccoy got into the cockpit of the modified supersonic Blackbird jet they'd be using as transportation. They needed the jet, of course; they could hardly have walked to Romania. However, as the basketball court outside the Xavier Institute slid away into the ground, and the jet rose up out of it, flying through the air towards their new destination, the X-men had no way of knowing that their rush to arrive at the scene of the escalating violence and panic over the mutant called Pietro was too little, and much too late. By the time they were even halfway across the Atlantic, Pietro had suffered the most terrible loss of his life.

* * *

Pietro had raced home once again after school, in less time than it took most people to take a single step, worry in his heart that people might never stop being suspicious and afraid of him. However, although he was deeply worried all the way home, he still never suspected the horror that awaited him when he got back to his house. There, he could see six people standing outside the front door to his home, all of them looking afraid and disturbed, as if about to flee from that place in terror. Pietro dared not even guess about what had made them so nervous, until he pushed his way past that mob, into the house, and saw what had happened. Three men stood over the body of his father Django. All three seemed worried, since the deed was over, but there was no doubt about what had happened. There was blood pouring from a wound in the back of Django's head, and one of the men held a large, heavy wrench with blood staining one side of it. Django Maximoff was dead, and those people had killed him.

Pietro stayed in accelerated time as he approached the body of his father, not slowing down in the least. He rushed up to Django, and turned him over on his back. The older man didn't seem to be breathing, but then, as fast as Pietro was moving, it would have been impossible to tell anyway. Pietro rammed both hands against his father's chest, to try to induce his heart to function, but the problem wasn't in Django's heart. Deep down inside, Pietro knew that, as he moved back to normal speed in front of everyone.

To them, it had seemed as if Django had suddenly flipped over on the ground, and Pietro had just materialized there, looking down in sorrow and misery at the body of his father. They were terrified and confused by what they'd just seen Pietro do, and indeed, by what they themselves had just done. None of them had expected things to go that far. It had only been in the heat of the moment, that they'd lost their senses and committed the terrible crime of manslaughter. Even so, they were killers, and they'd made Pietro an orphan.

Pietro didn't look at his father's killers for even a second as he got to his feet slowly and miserably. Not a single real tear fell from his face. He couldn't have brought himself to feel his ferocious, mighty emotions so obviously in front of such scum. Then, only a few seconds after he'd started standing upright over his father's lifeless body, Pietro's expression turned to one of malice and hatred, and his sharp, piercing glare was fixed on them. Half of them expected him to breath fire, when he opened his mouth, just a moment later.

"I never did anything to hurt you." Pietro said, his fury palpable in the air around them all, "All I ever wanted was to live together with you in peace. That was why I put out the fire. That was why I never hurt any of you. You had nothing to fear from me. I hope you're satisfied with what you did."

They all felt ashamed, although their fear was slightly fading; just enough that they were all shocked and terrified anew, by Pietro's next words.

"You took his life away, and you took away my life. Give them back!"

Pietro's last shout faded into a high-pitched screech, as he seized a thick, sharp knife from a drawer nearby, and shifted into speed mode. In less than a second, large, sharp cuts formed along the wrists and torsos of everyone still inside Pietro's house. Those fortunate enough to be outside heard the helpless screams of the other members of that mob, and fled for their homes as Pietro wielded the knife with deliberate speed and purpose; an insatiable rage and anguish burning in his heart. The terrified people who'd once been Pietro's neighbors fled his house as one, struggling to be the first to leave. The explanation of superhuman speed never entered their heads. To them, Pietro was an invisible man; a ghost on legs, who pierced the flesh of those who dared to intrude upon his house. Ghost stories of the Maximoff house would last for years after Pietro had been long gone.

The last man through the front door was understandably terrified, because at the moment he was about to leave, something unseen tripped him from underneath, and in moments, there was a feeling, as if a hundred hands were grabbing him from all over at once, dragging him back into the depths of that accursed place. When the front door closed behind him, he suddenly found his hands tied together with thin ropes. Whoever or whatever Pietro was, Morris Lornia was his prisoner.

"I should split open your skull," Morris heard the furious voice of Pietro from behind him, "and determine for certain whether I can give your worthless life to someone more worthy of it; like my father."

"K-killing me won't solve anything!" Morris exclaimed, but then, he felt a fist slam hard into the back of his head from behind, and the message in that was clear. Pietro wanted him to shut up.

"Those words might mean something if they didn't come from the mouth of a murderer." Pietro barked furiously.

"Django told us that he called the police." Morris exclaimed, "They'll be here in no time. You have to let me go, or we'll both get caught."

"They can't catch me if they can't see me." Pietro said, "As far as you, though... You're a heartless bastard. I want you to suffer. I want you to suffer really, really badly."

Then, another punch came down on Morris' head, even harder than the first, and he blacked out.

* * *

Pietro ran full tilt across the countryside, the clouds of dust he kicked up with his feet visible from the air, even when he himself wasn't. He didn't care where he ran to from then on, just so long as he kept running, and whenever he got tired, or needed a drink, or something to eat, he only stopped for a very short time before continuing onward. It was only six minutes before he stopped running; slowing down, and catching his breath, but to him, it had felt like a week and a half, and at the end of that continuing, prolonged dash to escape from his past, Pietro was shocked and terrified to hear the voice of someone who seemed to recognize him.

"Your self control is impressive. In your place, I don't think I would have been so merciful."

Pietro looked around quickly for the source of the voice, and found it in only moments; a man dressed in bright red, and dark violet. It was a strange kind of uniform, to be sure, with painted metal at several points on it, and a long, dark cape flapping in the wind behind him, which, since Pietro had stopped to rest on a mountaintop, wasn't unexpected behavior for a loose cape. The man also wore a large, metal helmet over his head, that was red and violet. In every way, he seemed dressed for battle, as he stood not far from Pietro.

"You gave me quite a chase, I'm afraid." the man said, sitting down on a nearby rock for a moment, "It was very difficult keeping track of you over those last few hours."

Pietro was confused and alarmed, but not eager to get himself into any more fights, so he started asking questions instead, curiosity and worry surrounding him the whole time.

"Who are you?" Pietro asked.

"Magneto." the man simply replied.

"That's your name?" Pietro asked, confused and surprised by such a strange pseudonym.

"In a sense." Magneto replied, "Magneto is my name, in that it's what I encourage others to address me as. However, you won't find a birth certificate in that name, or a driver's license, or anything else for that matter. I'm not a human, so I don't use a human name."

"You're not human?" Pietro asked, confused, and, he was surprised to find, a little interested too, "What are you?"

"I'm the same thing you are." Magneto explained, "I'm a mutant. Like you, I discovered, to my own terrible detriment, the horrible unfairness and wickedness of mankind, and learned of the petty desires of man, and their willingness to butcher their fellow man simply because of small differences in blood and ancestry. You and I, however... Our differences from the rest of mankind aren't quite as small."

"You mean my powers." Pietro realized aloud.

"Yes." Magneto replied with a smile, "Our mutant powers are a part of who we are. Because our powers are so great, we have the ability to overwhelm mankind, and all that ordinary humans have built. That's the reason why humans fear and despise us; they're afraid that we're a threat to them, and they're right to be afraid. A team of only a dozen skilled and trained mutants could, I think, conquer this entire world."

"I don't want to conquer anybody..." Pietro muttered, though he looked away from Magneto as he said it.

"No." Magneto replied, shaking his head sadly, "You want to live in peace with everyone. I overheard that much. I have similar desires myself, but unfortunately, we both know that isn't so easy. If we want to live in peace with mankind, it's going to take more than just acting peaceful ourselves. You showed those people peace, and they retaliated against you anyway. Do you deny that?"

Pietro shook his head quickly, but still, he muttered, "Maybe... Maybe if I hadn't let anybody find out about my powers..."

"Is that what it means to live in peace?" Magneto asked, curiously, but without any visible scorn over the idea, "Always concealing who you really are? Always hiding? Always lying? Always restrained from using your full power to achieve greatness? Ordinary humans, by contrast, use every resource at their disposal to get what they want, and never have to hide who they really are, unless they've done something to deserve a fugitive's life. Is it fair that they should be given such power, while we have to live under their terrified oppression?"

"Oppression?" Pietro asked. He had to admit that even before the fire, keeping his powers secret had felt very oppressive. He could do so much, so well, and so quickly, and yet, he couldn't ever let anyone find out, because they'd be afraid of him. It hadn't left nearly the impact on him that the death of his father had, but that feeling of oppression didn't seem right either.

"You know what I mean." Magneto replied, "Subduing your powers around humans, in order to avoid frightening them, or alienating them. There's prejudice of all kinds in the world; against people with different color hair, eyes, skin, people of different ages, sexes, heights, weights, body types, and more... But the worst and most intense prejudice is against those who have power beyond what ordinary humans possess. Humans just don't want to accept that some people have inherent advantages over others, and should be allowed to use those advantages. They'd much rather maintain their pleasant little world of forced equality, in which all power is obtained through social circles and manipulation, or else through a monarchy; based on no inherent abilities at all. When mutants like ourselves are introduced to the equation, the entire system starts to look every bit as lopsided as it really is. No mutant can live within that system, and still have the opportunity to live their life to its fullest."

"So..." Pietro muttered, not looking at Magneto for a moment, "what are we supposed to do?"

"Naturally, the first step was petitioning the governments of the world to change their policies regarding mutant rights." Magneto said, "If they were willing to change smaller-scale policies, after all, they might also be ready to make the larger changes that are needed to accommodate mutants. However, although I've petitioned the governments of the Earth many times, and in many ways, to change their policies, not once have they listened. In ignoring our requests, they have, I fear, transformed their societies, and their systems of government into weapons for use against mutantkind, and as long as mutants are being so viciously attacked, it falls to us to defend ourselves."

"You mean overthrow society?" Pietro asked, feeling a little distrustful of the man at last, "By force?"

"It's barbaric, I know." Magneto replied, "Still, we've been left with no other choice, I fear. The humans will never consent to allow us even the minor freedoms that they live under, and until that changes, we have to fight for our own freedom. Almost all modern nations have contained freedom fighters at one point or another, and many of them are now considered great heroes by history. If we choose to fight for our freedom, I believe that we can use our powers to liberate mutants of all kinds from the clutches of terrified human beings. That's my mission, and it's my goal. If you're available, I'd like you to join me in that. After all, you must know better than anyone how horrible the current state of affairs is for mutants. For my own part, I plan to do everything in my power to change that state. Will you help me?"

Pietro, however, was still confused and worried, and instead of replying to Magneto's question, he asked one of his own.

"Who are you really?" Pietro asked suspiciously, "Why were you watching me? At the speed I was going, you'd have to have been following me on purpose. What's the real story here?"

Magneto looked away, when Pietro asked that question, but finally, he said, in a voice that sounded a little more sad than before, "Well, you had to find out eventually. Pietro, Django Maximoff was not your real father. I was."

Pietro didn't have it in him to say another word about that. Magneto's claim didn't seem that far fetched, actually. He could see some resemblance to himself in the older man's face, and what little hair he could spot under the helmet that Magneto was wearing. Besides, it seemed that Magneto was about to explain himself even further. It was an explanation that Pietro was eager to hear.

"Many years ago, there was a war in a far-off country." Magneto explained, beginning his story, "Many countries and armies became involved in that war, and inevitably, some people were taken prisoner. I and my entire family were imprisoned, though we hadn't committed any crimes. We were taken from our homes, and put in a prison camp, where we were separated from each other by force. My family was tortured and killed. In that camp, I met a woman named Magda. When we met the first time, I could see her willingness to make sacrifices for those she cared about, and I knew she cared about me. I guess you could say that we fell in love in that camp together. Of course, we worked hard to keep our love a secret from the guards, and from our tormentors. Even so, they eventually found out, and tried to separate us. It was right near the end of the war, when they took her from me, and three men held me back. Even so, my will couldn't be destroyed. I was determined not to let them take her, and that... that was how I first discovered my mutant powers."

Pietro listened in amazement as Magneto spoke of his past. It was a fantastic and incredible story; a story of love awakening the power to conquer all. Even Pietro, who'd so recently suffered such terrible loss, found the tale wonderful.

"Many of our captors perished that day." Magneto continued sadly, "I was so infuriated by what those men had done to me, and what they'd been about to do, that I couldn't have stopped myself. The important thing was that at the end of the day, Magda and I escaped from that place, soaring joyously through the air in each other's arms. That night, we reached this country, and were married in a church near the outskirts of one of the northern towns. I've never felt such boundless happiness."

"However, happiness doesn't last forever." Magneto continued, his expression growing more bitter as he spoke, "With Magda by my side, I wanted nothing more than to live my life in peace and happiness, right here in Romania; far from every place I'd ever known, and every person I'd been hurt by. Magda had shown me a love, stronger than even my fury with those who'd hurt me. With her, I could have understood, and lived a life of love, and we did indeed enjoy the life that we had together. We established ourselves as a husband and wife; I got a new job, a home, and when I last saw her, she was pregnant with a child; a boy, and very close to giving birth. However, when I came home from work one night, my home was ablaze. I tried to rush in; use my powers to save the woman who'd brought me such joy, but a superstitious mob interfered. One of them had seen me flying through the air not long before, and assumed that I was wicked and dangerous because of that. I don't know whether or not those people started the fire, but I lashed out at them, driving them away, and destroying any hope I might otherwise have had for a normal life. By the time I was able to extinguish the flames, there was no sign of my wife or son."

"I scoured that entire section of the country, searching for any trace of Magda. I could only learn so much, though. If I'd known how to use my powers as I do today, I might have been able to locate you, but what happened..."

At that point, Magneto sighed again, still not looking at Pietro as he spoke.

"I heard a rumor of a pregnant woman who'd been badly burned. I tracked her down to a hospital, where I discovered that she'd died during childbirth. The burns had been too much for her. I was in grief over her passing, and I'm ashamed to say that I forgot about you almost entirely for several hours at that point, but I doubt that much good would have been accomplished if I'd remembered. By the time I continued my investigation, I discovered that her newborn child had been sent to an orphanage, then adopted shortly afterwards. I tried to discover who'd adopted you, but I had no documentation to indicate that I was your father, and I'd never actually seen you before, so I couldn't have identified you by sight. I'd discovered that you'd been named Pietro at the hospital where you were born, but without a last name, or proof of identification, there was only one thing left to do; I waited for you to grow into your early teenage years. I knew that sometime between the ages of eleven and fifteen, you'd develop mutant powers, and it was the only way I could be certain that it really was you; my son."

Pietro still didn't speak, until Magneto looked back at him. There was great sadness all over his face, and Pietro could tell that at least part of Magneto's story was true.

"I still have a lot of questions..." Pietro said at last, "For now, though, I'll go with you."

"Very good." Magneto remarked, standing up with a smile forming along his lips, "Actually, I'd be happy to answer any further questions you might have, but not here. I have a base of sorts that I'd like to take you to; it's a high-tech installation of my own design, that I built using my mutant abilities, and there are others there, that I'd like you to meet."

As he spoke, a bright light shone around Magneto's left hand, and in seconds, that light had expanded outward, until it surrounded both of them in a massive, glowing orb. When that orb started to rise upward, Pietro was amazed to discover that he and Magneto were being carried up, along with it. Not only that, but there was no feeling of disorientation, or loss of balance. Magneto was using his powers to bring both himself, and Pietro to a new location, and although Pietro wasn't sure whether to trust what Magneto had told him or not, he didn't feel as if he were in any real danger. In fact, though he'd recently lost everything and everyone he'd ever known or cared about, it felt as if there were still big choices, and equally-big opportunities ahead.

* * *

Professor Xavier closed both eyes tightly. He was worried; even terrified by what had just happened, though he hadn't been able to stop it. The death of the only human that Pietro had still felt affection for, and his subsequent encounter with Magneto had all been seen quite clearly in Xavier's own mind. He'd informed the X-men of what had happened within seconds, but there was, he realized, little else that he could do. Ever since Magneto had escaped from his failed takeover of the Nevada missile base, Xavier had been almost certain that he'd try to take action against the humans again. The Professor hadn't been present at the missile base crisis himself, but he'd seen Magneto's actions there in the memories of the X-men, and he knew what kind of man Magneto had become since they'd last spoken as friends. Xavier knew that Magneto was completely convinced that humans would never listen to reason, or seek peace with mutants. If he was right, it justified proactive action on behalf of mutants, just as Magneto had said, but even so, the ends didn't always justify the means, as he seemed to think they did.

It hadn't been long since Magneto had murdered three men on U.S. soil. All three had been bigots and hate-mongers, but even so, actually killing them in cold blood had been a grave choice on Magneto's part. It meant that he'd fully committed to a campaign of violence for the purpose of promoting his chosen cause. Truthfully, the desires of Xavier and Magneto for all mutants weren't so different. Each wanted mutants and humans to live peacefully and fairly with each other, but Xavier still believed that violence wasn't the solution, while Magneto clearly believed that no level of peaceful conduct, or good deeds could sway mankind. Xavier knew that Magneto's actions and choices made them enemies, and yet... In many ways, they were still so similar, that Xavier wasn't ready to give up on him as a friend either.

"I'm sorry, Eric." Xavier thought silently as he opened his eyes again, "I'm sorry you couldn't have been more patient with them, and I'm sorry that I have no choice left, but to stop you."

Then Charles Xavier sent out a new telepathic message, to all of the X-men everywhere.

"X-men. Please meet me in my study. I need to brief you all on what's been happening. There are dire choices that we all need to make."

* * *

It took several hours before all of the X-men could gather in the professor's study, since they'd needed to turn the jet back around, midway across the ocean. Mccoy was disappointed that they'd failed to reach Pietro in time, and to a lesser degree, he was also disappointed that they'd wasted quite a bit of jet fuel for nothing.

"What's up, Professor?" Bobby Drake asked, as Logan closed the door behind the group, and stood in a corner of the room, close to Professor Xavier's desk. Charles Xavier looked sad when he spoke next, but it was only the normal kind of sadness, that he wore when he had to give the X-men bad news.

"I'm afraid that today's failure was my fault. I'd noticed the tension building in Romania, and I hadn't reacted to it. I should have immediately used Cerebro to scan the country for mutants as soon as I sensed that, but I assumed that it wasn't serious, and now... Now a mutant named Pietro Maximoff has joined Magneto."

"What's Cerebro?" Bobby asked, more confused than usual.

"It's a machine that Magneto and I designed a long time ago." Xavier explained aloud, "It's intended to amplify psychic powers, and make it possible for a trained psychic to detect mutants anywhere on Earth. I should have used it, because... Because I'm not the only one who has a machine for detecting mutants. I'm convinced that Magneto has one as well, and the group that was working with Anna almost definitely has a copy of the blueprints for the machine, if not a prototype of their own. I'm sorry about what happened. I should have been more vigilant."

"There's something I don't get." Scott said from where he was standing, near the back of the room, "Why would Pietro be in such a hurry to join Magneto's cause? I mean, jumping on board with someone like him is really hazardous. You'd think even a really young kid would think twice about it."

"Magneto turned to violence and revenge to solve his problems, because he'd been so badly embittered by the pain and loss that he'd suffered." Xavier explained, "Right now, Pietro is very close to making that choice for himself as well. He's just had the only father figure he ever knew killed by people who were motivated only by fear and suspicion of someone different from them. That experience has embittered him. In fact, if he were just a little older, he might have wound up exactly the same as Magneto. However, Magneto is Pietro's father, and now that he's been told that, it seems unlikely that Pietro will be as consumed by hate and bitterness as Magneto was; at least not right away. Right now, Magneto has taken Pietro someplace, where I can no longer sense his thoughts, but the last time I did sense them, he was in such emotional turmoil... Even I can't predict what Pietro's next choice will be."

Everyone was silent for a few seconds, until Scott finally spoke up.

"One way or another, we have to find some way to stop Magneto. When we fought him last, he seemed pretty adamant about wanting to force people to accept mutants. If we even want to have a chance to live in peace with human beings, we can't let him give mutants such a bad name."

"At this point," Xavier said as if he hadn't heard what Scott had said, "I'm sure that Magneto has gathered quite a few mutants to support his cause. Any attempt to get in his way will almost certainly involve a dire risk to your lives. That having been said, I believe I've finally determined where he's been planning his attacks from, and how Magneto keeps disappearing."

The Professor paused for a moment, looking around the room to make certain that he had everyone's attention, before he continued.

"A month or so ago, a meteorite, made of mostly iron ore was headed towards our planet. The United Nations reportedly developed several contingency plans to deal with the meteorite, but none of them needed to be put into motion, because once the meteorite was close enough to Earth, it somehow achieved a safe orbit. There was quite a bit of research into what could have caused such a fortunate turn of events, but eventually, it was determined by a team of scientists working with the US Government, that the change in the meteorite's course had been caused by an electromagnetic fluctuation, that had drawn the meteorite within range of the Earth's magnetic field."

"Yeah." Logan said from nearby, "Sounds like Magneto to me."

"I'm now convinced that Magneto has been refining the iron in the Earth's new satellite; transforming the meteorite into a base of operations in orbit around the Earth." Xavier continued, "It's hard to believe, but he does have both the power and skill needed to do that."

"So how are we supposed to get to the guy if he's set up shop in space?" Jubes asked, but Xavier wasn't sure how to answer that question. Henry Mccoy seemed to notice that Xavier didn't have any reply to give, so he decided to speak up.

"Unfortunately," he said, "it's not just a matter of getting into outer space ourselves. There are ways to accomplish that. The real problem is that we don't know what we'd run into up there. I doubt Magneto would leave his base of operations undefended from attack, and if he himself were there, it would be even more dangerous to try to approach. He could just tear any spaceship we tried to use to pieces with his mutant powers. For the moment, we have no way of attacking his base directly. We have to play this defensively."

"That's not good enough." Scott said, looking truly angry as he spoke, "Today, Magneto recruited a confused, young mutant for his team because we acted defensively, and we weren't quick enough to stop him. I'm not satisfied with a stalemate, but losing ground is even worse. If we want to be defensive about this, we need a sure-fire way to cut Magneto off whenever he makes a move."

"Unfortunately, Magneto has a strong defense from mental probes; even ones as powerful and complex as my own." Xavier replied, "Additionally, he seems to have discovered a means of blockading his base against psychic impulses, and infiltration from the astral plane. I can't use my powers to track his location, or his base."

"It's not entirely hopeless." Mccoy said reassuringly, "I can probably throw something together in a couple of hours, that can keep track of the heavy iron concentrations within the meteorite, but as for tracking Magneto himself, all I have are a few long shots. If I call in a few favors, and get a few second opinions from some friends in the scientific community, we might be able to develop some kind of machine that can scan for fluctuations in the earth's electromagnetic field, but it might be hard to tell the different between Magneto and the normal electromagnetic disturbances that the Earth experiences every day. Even if it worked just right, it would only be able to track Magneto when he was using his powers pretty intensely. That's a slim chance for an advantage at best."

Normally, Jean Grey would have stayed totally silent while the others were talking. She knew she didn't understand as much about what was going on as most of them, with the exception of Bobby, who understood next to nothing about the procedures involved in tracking down enemies, or locating bases. However, there was something that had occurred to her; something she wanted to bring up.

"How fast can Magneto fly?" she asked, drawing all eyes in the room in her direction. Scott was silent, just looking at her. Mccoy didn't seem to know what she was talking about, and Bobby definitely didn't.

"What difference does that make?" Bobby asked.

"Well, it's just that today, when we headed for Romania, we had to go by jet because it was the only way to travel fast enough to get there within a few hours." Jean said, "I've seen Magneto fly on his own, but not very fast. I know it's strange to think about, but when we fought Anna, it seemed like she could fly across huge distances in no time flat, but Magneto always flew a lot slower."

"Hey, yeah, now that you mention it." Bobby realized with a smile, "When Magneto flew off after that last fight, he was flying more like bird-speed than bullet speed."

"Anna could safely travel faster than sound, because she had the endurance of Thor." Mccoy replied, "Magneto has no such protection. If he tried to break the sound barrier without some kind of specially-shielded vehicle, he could injure himself."

"In other words, Magneto can't travel as fast as our jet, unless he has a jet of his own." Jean concluded, at which point Mccoy felt like slapping himself across the face. Of course, it made perfect sense, so he turned back to Jean with a smile.

"Jean. Come with me." Mccoy said, still smiling, "There's something I want to investigate."

Quickly, Mccoy led Jean, who was rapidly becoming very nervous, out of Xavier's study, leaving the rest of the students wondering what the interruption in the meeting was all about. In moments, Mccoy had moved down the hall to his own office, and entered his password into his computer, then started running programs on it; mainly encrypted data searches on the internet. At last, he found what he was looking for, and turned back to face Jean with a smile.

"Thank you, Miss Grey." Mccoy said, grinning broadly in a way that revealed his many large teeth, "I think you may be a true genius, not unlike myself. Let's tell the others."

Jean still wasn't sure what kind of revelation Professor Mccoy had arrived at, but it was obviously important. Soon, he'd returned to Xavier's study, where the others were still gathered, and still curious. Jean followed close behind, as eager to hear Mccoy's news as anyone.

"There might be a way to track Magneto after all." Mccoy said with a smile, "At the time when Magneto reached Romania, the asteroid he's using as his base was positioned over Australia in its orbit. There was no way he could have reached Romania in such a short time, traveling at subsonic speeds. In short, Magneto has a supersonic space ship. We don't need to keep track of Magneto; just the vehicles and bases he's using."

"Can we do that?" Xavier asked.

"We have one of the best stealth jets on Earth sitting right underneath our back yard." Mccoy replied with a smile, "I'll find a foolproof method of tracking it, and when I do, I'll be that much closer to tracking Magneto's."

Scott was still frowning, but Jean was feeling a lot better. It wasn't the first time she'd gotten the chance to help the X-men, but she relished every chance she got. It made her feel more courageous and helpful, and that made her feel satisfied and happy for the first time since before Magik had come to live at the Xavier Institute. It had been one of those moments that made life worth living.

* * *

Pietro's tour of Asteroid M had been a quick, and relatively painless one, and he'd been introduced to several new people that he thought it might not be so bad to work with. Some of them were mutants, who'd only recently discovered their powers, while others had been using their abilities for several months before joining Magneto, but they all wanted a proper kind of place for mutants; a place where they could be free to use their mutant powers to earn positions of greatness for themselves, or a society to rise to the top of with their fantastic gifts. It was under that banner, that each had joined in Magneto's cause. They each wanted to end the prejudice and unfairness of the world that had caused so much suffering for Pietro so recently. In theory, it was an easy cause to stand behind, and yet...

As recently as Pietro himself had resorted to brutal violence, in order to get what he wanted, something didn't feel right about Magneto's plans.

"You've got so much force here, I'm surprised you haven't seized power already." Pietro said, as Magneto led him to the place that would be his room on Asteroid M.

"Discretion is the better part of valor." Magneto replied, "Guiding the destiny of the world's people, and enforcing large changes in society are big jobs, and simple power seems unlikely to accomplish those tasks. A solid, reliable plan is needed first, and there are those who want to stop us from succeeding."

"You mean other mutants?" Pietro asked, "Mutants fighting against their own kind?"

"Indeed." Magneto replied, "Even among humans, a choice is frequently made to sacrifice the safety and wellbeing of their own brothers. I view my enemies in the same light. They'd walk blindly into the traps and torture devices of the jailers and mass murderers that they call government officials, but that's not the life for me. I could never live with myself if I didn't stand up and fight for rights; not just for me, but for all mutants. I'd like to see us all liberated from the climate of suspicion and fear that the very mention of a mutant brings forth. I must help to guide both humans and mutants to their rightful place in the world."

Pietro didn't have anything to say in reply to that, so he remained silent. For his age, he had a way with words, but Magneto had been around a lot longer, and was just that much more charismatic.

Of course, the other reason that Pietro had fallen silent, was that his room looked absolutely luxurious. Django Maximoff had never been particularly wealthy, and Pietro had never seen any accommodations like the kind Magneto had set up in his quarters. It consisted of five whole rooms, every one measuring at least five yards in any given direction. There was a large, central living room, with a comfortable sofa, a few chairs, and several bookcases containing many of humanity's best literary accomplishments, including, Pietro was surprised to find, the works of Shakespeare, and the Bible. That central room led, on one side, to a kitchen that doubled as a dining room, and on the other side, to a bedroom, with a bathroom off to one end. The bed was large, wide, and extremely sturdy-looking. Pietro could have slept on the bed sideways, and not been the least bit uncomfortable. As for the bathroom, the tub looked more like a part of the room, with three separate walls that slid in and out of the floor at the push of a button. It could have been used easily as a tub, a shower, or a small pool, depending on which walls were left up. Pietro wasn't sure, at first, how Magneto got fresh water pumped into a space-based location like that one, but it was definitely more than he'd ever expected.

As for the last room that had been given to him, it was empty; completely empty. It was like the inside of a large, metal box.

"This room is your canvas." Magneto said with a smile, "You can do whatever you want with it. Of course, you can also customize the contents of your other rooms, if you'd like, but in this one, you can start from scratch. I use mine for practicing discreetly in the use of my mutant powers."

"Of course, there are things we can't get up here just yet." Magneto explained, "All our television and satellite signals have to be sent up here by a special transmitter, for example, so they lose some of their resolution. Still, the important thing is the mission. None of these small inconveniences will mean a thing, once mutants can earn their rightful place in the world."

"It's still a lot more than I was expecting." Pietro said, "Thank you very much... father."

Magneto nodded once, with a smile on his face, then remarked, "Before I leave, however, there is one more thing I feel I should ask you for. I'd like to know your name."

"Um... Pietro Maximoff." he said after just a moment, however Magneto's smile fell away when Pietro said that.

"That's a human name." Magneto said a little sternly, "My name is Magneto. What's your name; your real name?"

At first, Pietro didn't understand what Magneto meant, until he remembered what the master of magnetism had said earlier that day, about how he'd forsaken the name he'd once been given by human beings. Maybe, Pietro realized, Magneto expected him to make the same choice; to forsake his old name, or at least to make a new one for himself, in keeping with his more-than-human abilities. Pietro had to think about that for a moment, but in the end, making up a new name for himself was an easy enough price to pay for the home, hope, and companionship that Magneto had offered him.

"Quicksilver." Pietro decided in moments. Magneto just nodded and smiled again, as he left Pietro's room, and then Pietro was alone once more.

No good-byes, no further welcomes or congratulations on having arrived. Then again, there was still a big mission ahead of them. Pietro knew that Magneto wasn't the ideal father, nor could he hope to replace Django, but it was just possible that he could still enjoy his new life among other mutants. He didn't have to hide his powers anymore, which was very liberating in its own way, and yet...

Pietro's old life was completely gone. The last remnants of it had faded with his name, and he couldn't help but feel as though that was even more oppressive than a climate of fear, in its own way.

* * *

End


	18. X Men 2: Faith and Fears

X-Men Neo

Issue 2

"Faith and Fears"

* * *

A few days had passed since Pietro had first joined Magneto's group, and he was pleased to find that he didn't have a whole lot to complain about. The accommodations had been luxurious by his former standards, and the other mutants who also lived in Asteroid M were generally nice enough to him. Of course, only a few of them seemed like the kind of people that Pietro could really have made friends with. The hard part had been getting used to calling each of them by a non-human "name," and being called by such a name himself. There was one mutant there, for instance, who called himself Pyro. He was difficult to get along with, because he seemed to instantly lose interest in anything that didn't have to do with violence, action, or money in some capacity. Toad was a little better, if only because of his humility. He tended to crouch off to one side, whenever the others were having a conversation, but when he was addressed directly, he wasn't shy at all, and smiled a lot when it happened; grateful for the attention. Pietro could have easily made friends with him. He'd heard that the two of them had worked together before, as members of another team of mutants that had eventually been dissolved, but he hadn't asked any more about it.

It seemed that the two of them, though, were the only ones who'd previously struggled towards mutant liberation. All the rest seemed to have discovered their abilities much more recently, and were still pretty inexperienced, like Pietro.

There was one other boy who seemed to be part of Magneto's group, and the rest were girls. The boy's mutant name was Impervious, and true to form, he appeared to be utterly untouchable. Objects and people stopped about half a centimeter from his skin, which had to have some unpleasant ramifications. Still, he seemed to be able to get around the limitations of his abilities when eating, so it probably wasn't a huge inconvenience being untouchable. As for the girls, there were three of them as well. The first called herself Ethereal, though she never seemed to brag about her powers. She had long, red hair, and she was friendly and kind, but secretive and reserved. Pietro could have been her friend on a superficial level, but she definitely didn't seem interested in any relationships that went deeper than that. The second of the girls called herself Charge, and unlike Ethereal, she was prone to showing off her powers. She created expanding, powerful force fields around herself, that she could channel large amounts of biologically-generated electricity into, similar to the ability that Magneto had shown to Pietro not too long ago. She had long, blond hair, and she loved to talk about herself. In fact, she was clearly an egotist in every way that a person can be. Pietro found her bravado a little comforting and inspiring, but also alienating. They couldn't really have been friends.

The last of the members of Magneto's group was a younger, smaller girl, with short, brown hair. She was shorter than Pietro by almost a head, and she was very shy and reserved most of the time. It wasn't really humility though. In some ways, she seemed intimidated by her own mutant allies, as well as a little uncomfortable around them, especially Charge. She called herself Tick, but she'd never shown her powers to Pietro, and hardly ever used them around any of the other members of Magneto's group. Pietro wasn't sure whether the two of them could be friends or not, but it was hard not to feel sorry for her, being so shy and all.

At 6:30 PM, on the third day since Pietro had joined Magneto's Mutant Alliance, or the "Allies" as he called it, they were all summoned by a type of PA system in the walls of the asteroid compound, to report to the guidance chamber in the center of the base, because a fresh mission was about to begin. Pietro wasn't sure he liked the sound of that, but he knew that he owed Magneto a little something for giving him a place to live. Soon, he and the others had all gathered in the guidance chamber, which had been called that because, whenever the asteroid base's orbit started to decay, that was the chamber from which Magneto guided it back into a safe orbit again. For a little while, they all stood together, and listened when Magneto spoke; most of them thankful to him for having given them a chance that the world would have tried to prevent.

"Thank you for coming so quickly." Magneto said as he walked towards them from the room's center, until he was standing in their very midst, "I think we're almost at the point where we can start to be proactive, but our first duty is still to find new recruits, and I think I've discovered one."

As he spoke, Magneto pointed out a device to them. It was a machine laying off to one side of the guidance chamber, that looked like a small helmet, attached by wires to a computer.

"That's a mutant-detector." Magneto said, "It locates people whose bodies generate energy for use in mutant powers. It's how I found all of you."

"Yeah." Pyro said, though he wasn't smiling, "I've seen something like that before."

"Well, I've discovered a reading in northern Italy." Magneto explained quickly, "I think there's probably a mutant of some sort there. It's a faint reading, though, and it seems to fade in and out, so I'm certain that we can expect this mutant to have a very unusual type of ability. I want your help in locating this mutant, and, if he decides to attack, I'd like you all to be ready to retaliate."

"You mean we should use our powers against another mutant?" Pietro asked.

"Unfortunately, it's unavoidable at times." Magneto replied, looking as sad as ever, "Do you remember the enemies I told you I had? They're the second reason I'd like you all to come along. If they locate our position and attack, I may need your help to drive them off."

Pietro didn't like the idea, but both Impervious and Charge were obviously eager to get started, and there was, after all, a mutant who needed their help.

"What if this new mutant doesn't want to come with us?" Pietro asked, "What if he doesn't want to join?"

The question had been badly-phrased, but Magneto knew what Pietro was really trying to say and responded quickly.

"I won't enslave mutants; I only liberate them. If the mutant in Italy doesn't want to join our cause, that is its right. If, however, he or she tries to stop us, or injure us, then it may be your duty to attack them. Do you understand?"

"Yes." Pietro said, his worried expression fading again, as relief crept over him, "That's good to know."

"Now, I'll give you the data that my computers have on the global position of this mutant within Italy..." Magneto said, continuing his explanation, "Unfortunately, I can't tell you precisely what they look like. Pietro, I'll need to rely on your speed to locate the mutant. I can give you information on the neighborhood in which they live, but once there, you'll need to be able to locate and identify the mutant yourself. Whether or not you're able to identify the mutant, however, don't try to address him or her. Instead, report back to me, and I'll take care of the rest, but stay on the alert in case we're attacked."

Pietro felt a little odd when Magneto told him to do that. Hopefully, it wouldn't be so hard to find out who the mutant was, but Pietro was definitely being put on the spot, and only a short time after having joined Magneto's team. It could have been seen as a show of good faith on Magneto's part, that he'd entrusted Pietro with such an important task right away. Then again, it could have just as easily been a test of Pietro's loyalty. On the whole, he wasn't sure how to look at it, so he decided, for the moment, to try not to feel emotional over it, as he and the others were led towards the launching bay, in preparation for Pietro's first real mission.

* * *

Xavier was sitting in his study, trying to plan school curriculums, when he heard a thought being directed right at him, from a few rooms down the hall.

"Charles." the thought belonging to Henry Mccoy said, "Magneto's on the move. He's just launched a jet from the asteroid, and it's headed towards Europe. Shall we dance?"

Xavier didn't hesitate for even a moment, replying quickly, with a telepathic message to the X-men.

* * *

Jean Grey's feelings were tearing her up inside. She couldn't be sure what others thought of her. All she knew was that whenever she went out on missions with the X-men, her desire to avoid violence always made her feel sad when it came to a fight, and whenever she held back, and let the others do the work, it made her feel lazy and uncaring, as if she were betraying her friends. Living a life where battle was a regular occurrence was difficult for a person who thought violence was terrible. She probably could have talked to Kurt about it, but his aversion to violence seemed to be less emotional, and more religious. She was pretty sure that his answer to her questions wouldn't have done much to help her.

Jean also had to wonder, sometimes, if maybe her feelings about violence were just an expression of her inner cowardice; if maybe she was only feeling bad about violence because she was afraid. She hoped that wasn't true. Disappointing her friends because she didn't believe in violence would have been hard to cope with, but disappointing them just because she was scared would have been several times worse.

For a moment, Jean Grey actually wished that she could have been in horrible, immediate danger for once, just so that she could know whether she was cowardly or not, but it was just one of those feelings that passes through a person's mind when they can't explain why they feel upset, and it faded quickly. Jean knew she couldn't afford to distract herself with thoughts like that when she still had so much studying to do.

However, just as she was looking back down at the book that sat on the table in front of her, she heard the one thing she feared most in the world; a summons from Professor Xavier.

"X-men, Magneto has sent a spacecraft out from his base towards Earth. The vehicle's current trajectory should land it somewhere in Europe, but he's still quite some distance from there. We'll need to move fast if we want to stop him. Please meet in the preparation rooms, and get ready. Professor Mccoy will make sure that everything is in order for the mission."

Jean dropped her book, as the message faded from her thoughts. It was the strangest thing. All the time she'd spent sitting and worrying about just that sort of thing happening, and yet, when it had actually occurred, she'd started to feel just a little better. Maybe taking action; any kind of action, just naturally felt better than sitting and thinking about it.

* * *

The jet that Pietro and the other members of the Allies had ridden in to reach Italy was a sleekly-built, fast and efficient one, although Pietro had never seen one like it before. He couldn't have known for certain whether it was a model of jet that had been taken from someone's air force, or whether it had been built from the ground up by Magneto, using his mutant powers and amazing knowledge of mechanics and electronics. Pietro didn't know the first thing about most of the machines and guages that filled the consoles of that jet.

Of course, the jet had been designed to be sealed off completely from the outside world, so that it could be used as a space shuttle, but it had enough of an air supply, that Pietro didn't feel too worried by that. He and the other members of the Allies got in, strapped on their buckles, and watched the front of the cockpit in amazement, as the space-jet descended rapidly towards the Planet Earth, entered the atmosphere gently and gracefully, then sped through the air with amazing speed for a vehicle, headed in the direction of Italy. It was a long distance, and a long ride, but Pietro couldn't make the time pass any faster.

"I don't suppose anybody here can make time pass faster." Pietro commented to the others, as minutes passed, while the jet continued on its journey at Magneto's guidance. Mostly, they shook their heads, or looked away in irritation, but Tick nodded just a little; just enough that Pietro saw it.

"Tick?" Pietro asked, confused.

"I... Um... I can." Tick muttered, then looked away again. For more than one reason, Pietro decided it might be a good idea not to ask any more about it.

They'd ridden the jet for quite a while, but eventually, it reached its destination, landing in an open field, just on the outskirts of a small city. Once the landing was complete, the entire ship powered down, and Magneto emerged from the cockpit again, to speak with Pietro about his job.

"The neighborhood in which our mutant friend lives is the one closest to this location, once you enter the city. He or she should be within four blocks of the city's entrance from that direction. Remember, if you find the mutant, don't try to contact them yourself."

Pietro nodded, as the back door of the space-jet opened, and in that instant, he shifted into speed mode, and leapt out of the jet to the ground, heading off towards the city at a casual, but still absurdly-fast stroll.

Pietro's job turned out to be both easier and harder than he'd expected it to be, in different ways. While the number of people in the city neighborhood he'd been sent to numbered only seven, he didn't see anything very strange about any of them. None of them seemed to look in any way abnormal or inhuman, and no one was using any special powers, as far as Pietro could tell. They might easily have all been humans. Pietro remembered what Magneto had said about how mutants tend to develop special powers at the start of their teenage years, but that only made things more confusing, because all the inhabitants of that neighborhood were either elderly, or full-grown adults, except for one little baby girl. In the end, Pietro decided to give up on trying to identify the mutant himself, and report his findings to Magneto. However, as he headed back across the fields, towards the space-jet, he saw something that he hadn't noticed on the way into the city; there was another plane; a smaller one approaching their position from the air.

Pietro had made the trip back and forth into the city in the five seconds it had taken the back door of the space-jet to finish opening, and when he went back by the same route, and returned to normal speed, even Magneto was surprised by how fast he'd completed his job. However, Magneto was in for much nastier surprises in the near future.

"Father..." Pietro said, "There's a small jet approaching us."

"The X-men." Magneto realized grimly, "What about the mutant?"

"I'm not sure which one it is." Pietro said, "There are six in that neighborhood that might be mutants, and a seventh who's still a baby."

Magneto nodded thankfully to Pietro, as he headed for the exit of the plane, saying "I'm going into the city myself. If the X-men try to follow me, stop them. Start with a simple warning, but if they try to push past you, you can use force."

Then Magneto left the plane, and headed towards the city, as the Allies started unbuckling themselves from the spacecraft, and preparing for what could become a very fierce battle.

* * *

Piotr had decided against joining the X-men on that mission, and he'd had a couple of reasons for that. For one, he'd been convinced, probably with good reason, that his metallic form made him vulnerable to Magneto's control, making him a liability for the most part. He'd also wanted to spent some more time trying to help his sister adjust to life on planet Earth. Magik was definitely not doing too well at understanding concepts like manners and gratitude, and she'd need to if she was going to survive on Earth, whether she was a human or not. It had seemed, to most of them, like the best use of Piotr's time, if he truly couldn't help them against Magneto.

Most of the others were there in full force, though Logan knew that his metal skeleton might also make him a target, and Kurt had left his sword behind. It seemed like the greatest danger from Magneto was if he decided to use their plane as a weapon. Other than that, they'd simply have to fight as well as they could, and hope that he didn't have too many other mutants on his side.

However, when Scott lead the way out of the Blackbird, with the others following close behind, they could all tell that the mission was going to be a lot harder than they'd first thought. A group of seven people stood in their way.

* * *

Magneto walked calmly into town; an invisible laser field surrounding him on all sides; protecting him just in case someone decided to attack him. People stared at him as he walked past. After all, he certainly wasn't dressed like anything human, and he was looking around warily, as if expecting an ambush. Still, he needed more information, and there was only one person nearby who seemed likely to give it to him. Magneto walked up to the one person in that neighborhood, who wasn't staring at him in worry; a disheveled man in old rags, with a long, black beard, and once he'd approached that old man, Magneto said with a smile, in perfect Italian, "Excuse me, but I'm looking for someone with special skills or abilities; someone unusual. Do you know where I might find someone like that?"

The disheveled man seemed disoriented at first, then looked up into Magneto's eyes from under his thick, black hair, and that was when Magneto knew he'd found the mutant. The ragged man's eyes were bright blue, like the sky, and they glowed just slightly. Magneto had never seen human eyes do that before.

"Are you searching for miracles?" the man asked, with an ironic smirk forming on his lips, as his eyes dashed back and forth, "There were miracles in the world once, but... but not now; not since people stopped believing."

That was when something occurred to Magneto. A slower man might never have determined the truth behind the ragged mutant's words, but it had just become obvious to Magneto why the man's mutant powers had been fading and reappearing, instead of remaining constant, like most mutants.

"Your powers must really be impressive," Magneto said aloud, "to be mistaken for miracles."

"I can do no miracles anymore." the man insisted sadly, "No one has faith in me any longer."

"That's not true." Magneto replied, "I have faith in you. I believe that you're a mutant, and I believe that you have the power to make a difference; to change the very fate of the world. Come with me, and together, we can make a better future for mutantkind."

That was when the ragged man's expression changed sharply, however. As Magneto held out one hand to the man, the man grabbed it firmly, and rose to his feet almost at once; the confusion and sorrow fading from his gaze, as an old, mighty ambition returned to it. He looked intently at Magneto as the two stood, their left hands grasping each other firmly. The ragged mutant's gaze seemed to have been fixed firmly on Magneto, and there was no longer any doubt in his voice when he spoke.

"Once," he said, "I did more than just change the world. Once, I was a ruler of men. They believed in me, and I bestowed great favors upon them. I made the rains come during times of famine. I kept the snow and ice away from their crops. I protected them from their enemies with fire from the heavens. I was their guardian. I cared for them and supported them, and with their faith, they supported me as well. Without the faith of others, I have no power, but with the faith of the people, I can do whatever I must. You show me the faith of one man, and I'm grateful for it. It's a breath of air after a long, long time of suffocation. However, I fear that my powers will aid you little unless others believe in me as well."

Magneto was more than a little surprised by what the mutant was saying. According to him, his mutant powers only operated when others believed that he possessed them, and the greater the number of people who believed in him, and in his power, the greater his power would be. If that were true, it was easy to see how such a mutant could both escape detection until then, and also genuinely mistake himself for a god, or guardian spirit of some kind. Despite the strange delusions that the mutant seemed to be under, Magneto would have worked alongside him without hesitation, but he wanted to be certain of one more thing first.

"You say that you're a guardian, and that you were once a ruler of men." Magneto said, "Is ruling an important thing to you? If I asked you merely to assist in a cause, would you agree to work as a member of a team, and not as its ruler?"

However, the ragged mutant's reply was a relief to Magneto.

"Ruling is an enormous responsibility. I guided my people long ago, because none of them could be trusted to rule with fairness, but truthfully, I had no desire to rule for its own sake. Leadership is a tremendous burden."

"Would you consent to follow me, and do as I say, for the benefit of others like you?" Magneto asked.

"I have lived without faith for so long, that I will follow anyone who has faith in me." the man replied, "You are my savior, and I will do as you request. Unless you turn your back on me, I will not forsake you."

"You have my word." Magneto replied with a smile, "I won't abandon you."

"Then I accept you as my leader." the ragged man replied, "I need someone to believe in me."

That was that. Magneto was satisfied with his new ally, with one exception. He needed something to call him by.

"What is your name?" Magneto asked.

"I no longer even remember." the man just said, "I've been alone, without faith or support for so long, that I've forgotten nearly all the specifics of my former life. It's been a long and tiring exodus for a guardian to make."

"Then I'll refer to you as Guardian, if you don't mind." Magneto said, still grinning, "one last thing. Can you speak English?"

"No." Guardian replied, "But for faith, I will do my best to learn it."

Magneto just nodded, as he turned to leave town, with Guardian following closely behind.

* * *

Scott Summers; code-named Cyclops, had needed to start firing when one of the mutants opposing them had shot a blast of flame at the X-men, and from there, things had escalated into a war. Kurt, also known as Nightcrawler, had started fighting with Toad almost at once. The two had fought before, and Toad was eager for a rematch. Ororo Munroe; alias Storm, had started using wind blasts against one of the girls, who seemed to be focusing on creating force fields. Tick was holding back from the fight in general, as Bobby; the Iceman, kept trying and failing to trap Impervious in an icy barrier. The big problem with that approach was that Impervious' personal protection field forced everything away from him continuously, allowing him full freedom to move, and in doing so, to move the barrier that surrounded him. That barrier would then move the ice away from him again, almost as if the ice wasn't there at all.

Jubilation, or Jubilee was faring a little better from the beginning. She'd started fighting Ethereal, who seemed to have changed her whole body into a cascade of mist, and begun by using small explosions, to try to disrupt her enemy's form. It worked fairly well, although as the mist dispersed, it seemed to be moving to surround Jubilee from all sides. Jubilee didn't like using her destruction spheres against enemies, because they always tired her out, but she didn't have a whole lot of choice. Quickly, she'd charged up a sphere of energized plasma in her hand, that began to gain mass as it moved away from her body, preparing to suck in anything too close to it, as it responded to her mental command. Jubilee was just about to sweep it around, in order to gather up the mist-based form of her enemy, when she felt the ground giving way underneath her, the dirt below her transforming into the same kind of mist that made up her enemy. The destruction sphere flew up into the air, detonating prematurely, and sucking in only a small portion of Jubilee's enemy, as she scrambled to get back on her feet. That was when Jubilee felt something unseen collide with her hard from several directions at once, and blacked out.

Jean Grey, or Marvel Girl was having her own problems. Pyro had located her, and distracted her with several flame blasts, each one bigger and harder to deflect with her telekinetic power. Pyro had the ability to control the growth and motions of flames, and so, it was essentially a matter of pitting her will against his own, each struggling to keep the flames traveling in their desired direction. In the end, Jean won those minor battles, but it tired her out horribly, and she was losing her concentration again.

Just then, however, Jean heard a new voice from nearby; one she'd never heard before.

"Faith at last. A chance at last. Perhaps, if other people will listen to me, I can show the world my strength once again."

Jean had been distracted from Pyro for a fraction of a second by the voices, but somehow, she knew what they meant.

"Cyclops!" Jean exclaimed, "Magneto's here!"

Scott cursed mildly, as he continued to fire at their other enemies, only pausing for a moment to look towards the city, from which Magneto and another man had only recently emerged. Then, Scott heard Jean again, choking painfully, and turned to face her in a hurry. There she was, lying on the ground, with Pyro's foot on her throat, as he held a ball of fire in one hand, ready to bring it down on her face. No longer caring if he killed Pyro, Cyclops took aim with his optic blasts, and immediately felt something fast and powerful strike him from behind. He was unconscious before he could feel anything more.

Jean was struggling just to breathe, as Pyro's boot pushed down on her neck. If she couldn't breathe, she couldn't concentrate sufficiently to defend herself, and worse yet, it seemed that Pyro realized that. He was grinning broadly, as he raised the fireball over his head in a single, sweeping motion, intending to bring it down on top of her, and then suddenly, someone new appeared; a thin teenager with white hair. In a fraction of a second, Jean had been struck in the side of the head, and she blacked out.

"Thanks a lot." Pyro said sarcastically to Quicksilver, "S'no fun now."

"This isn't about having fun." Pietro replied irritably, "We have a specific mission to complete."

"May as well finish off this one first, though." Pyro said with a smile, "It'll be nice to see a cutie like her under the tongues of the flame, even for just a second."

"Magneto didn't tell us to kill them." Pietro replied.

"Well, he didn't tell us not to either." Pyro said smugly.

"Don't do it." Pietro said sternly.

"Don't tell me what to do, newbie."

That was when Pietro grabbed Pyro's hand, and yanked it back away from Jean. Pyro looked stunned and hurt for a second, but he quickly recovered, becoming immensely angry, and causing the flames that had been so close to his hands to travel toward Pietro. That was when Pietro shifted back into speed mode.

Pietro Maximoff couldn't help but feel a little betrayed by Magneto as he stepped to one side of the flame blasts. Magneto had said that the Allies were united by their desire for those with mutant powers to have the chance to use them for greatness, but Pyro was clearly a full-on psychopath, and a rotten person to the very core. Pietro couldn't have justified having someone like that on his team if he'd been Magneto, and he had to take action based on that.

With everyone frozen around him, Pietro moved angrily to the left, where he slugged Pyro hard across the face, then returned to normal speed. Pyro fell away from Pietro's punch when the white-haired teenager had returned his perceptions of time to normal. He hadn't lost consciousness from it, but it seemed to have taken a good deal of the fight out of him.

"I said no." Quicksilver said, but as he said that, he looked around, wondering for a moment if he'd returned to normal speed after all. The X-men who remained standing seemed to have frozen in place, while the Allies were still fully capable of moving. Pietro wasn't sure what had caused it, until he saw Tick, both hands glowing brightly. She was sweating heavily, as if the effort of keeping all of those people frozen was a herculean one, and Magneto was standing at the door of the space-jet behind her.

"We don't have much time." Magneto said calmly, "Everyone get into the ship. Tick will be the last one on board."

Pietro was starting to lose more and more respect for Magneto as time went on, although he could only pin down a few good reasons for that mistrust. Still, he stood where he was, watching as the others got into the ship, then shifted into speed mode, and was rushing towards the ship himself, when he discovered, to his alarm, that Tick was keeping up with him. She was obviously struggling, and both of her hands were glowing with phosphorescent light, but she was still running as fast as him. Soon, the two young mutants shifted simultaneously out of speed mode, inside the ship and took their seats. When Magneto was satisfied that everyone was there, he started up the ship, and they were off.

"What..." Pietro asked as he buckled himself in during takeoff, "What was that you just did, Tick?"

Tick tried to look at Pietro, but seemed scared of looking him in the eye, and turned away quickly.

"I... use my mutant energy to bend time in specific locations." she said, "It's hard. I have to expend a lot of power, but there's a lot it can do..."

"Tick is one of our most powerful members." Ethereal explained, "She's the reason none of the Allies have ever been caught."

"Caught?" Quicksilver asked, confused.

"Well, we ARE trying to overthrow society." Ethereal replied, "If we were ever captured, I doubt they'd be gentle about it."

It was a thought that Pietro hadn't seriously considered since he'd joined the Allies; the thought that being one of them meant that he couldn't go back to being a law-abiding citizen. In the moment when he'd agreed to join Magneto, Pietro had felt as if the whole world wanted to hurt him, but since he'd had some time to think about it, he had to wonder if maybe it hadn't been his powers that had led to Django's death, but his persistent secrecy over them. When Magneto had talked about Magda, she'd sounded as if she'd accepted him for who he was; special powers and all. There had to be more people in the world like that. Maybe Magneto's quest really was founded more on an emotional reaction to the misunderstood flaws of mankind, rather than a serious problem that was worth overturning society for. Maybe, Pietro thought, the changes that really did need to be made could be made peacefully. He'd have to talk to Magneto about that a little later, as well as about his enemies, who hadn't been much older than Pietro himself. It was definitely something that needed to be addressed.

However, there was also another issue that needed to be addressed; something closer to home.

* * *

When Jean woke up after the fight was over, she was in the blackbird again, lying across several of the passenger's seats, which had been tilted back, and made into a makeshift bed. She had to look around for a few moments, before she saw that the other X-men were also there, either standing or sitting nearby. None of them looked terribly happy with the way things had gone that day. Professor Mccoy, who'd flown the jet on the way over, was standing over Jean.

Jean found it a little strange how easy it had been to get used to Mccoy's large, blue-furred appearance. When they'd all first arrived at the institute, she was the only one who'd been too scared to shake his hand, and yet, after having known him, and lived under the same roof as him for over a year, she just wasn't scared anymore. She didn't see the fur, the claws or the fangs. He was just Professor Mccoy.

"That could have gone a bit better, I'm afraid." Mccoy said, "Still, I'm impressed you all managed to handle yourselves so well out there."

"Yeah." Logan said from his seat nearby, "Me too. Wish I'd been able to help out, but something tells me it wouldn't have made much of a difference. We didn't have enough info on those guys Magneto had with him. I ain't even seen half of 'em before."

"I could tell you a few things about them." Jean said, "They call themselves the Allies. They're working with Magneto... supporting him. Pietro's one of them, and he... He's the one who hit Scott, Jubes and me."

The other X-men were rendered speechless as they heard Jean reciting those things so easily and casually, but Scott was obviously concerned about her.

"Jean..." he said, "Are you alright?"

Jean just nodded rapidly, before she replied, "Scott, this is important. I know this is all true. I just know it somehow... I can't explain how I know. I've just been... I've been feeling things lately that I shouldn't have been able to feel... hearing people when they haven't said anything... Scott, I think I can read people's minds, just like Professor Xavier. I'm not very good at it yet, but every once in a while, I get these little flashes of information, and... Well, I think we should take this group seriously anyway."

However, as Jean finished her explanation, looking back up at Scott, she was distressed to find that he was still standing there, still looking directly at her, and he still looked concerned.

"Are you alright, Jean?" Scott repeated caringly, and it almost made Jean want to run and hide when he asked her that.

"I'll... I'll... recover." Jean said, not daring to look directly at the visor that Scott used to cover his eyes when in disguise as Cyclops. Though he'd said nothing to encourage such thoughts, and indeed, was being as warm and kind as always, Jean felt like she'd betrayed Scott, by not telling him sooner about the new powers she'd been developing. It was hard and painful, keeping secrets from people.

Of course, far more than her shame over having kept her still-developing powers a secret from Scott, Jean had been effected that day by the terror she'd felt when Pyro had been choking her, and had seemed like he'd been about to kill her. Fear had kept her from concentrating, and so had fury. It was terrible. Whenever she got too emotional, she just couldn't focus her powers in the way that she needed to, and that basically made her useless in any scenario involving combat. Jean knew that her telekinetic powers, when taken to their furthest extent, could be one of the most powerful physical forces that the X-men had at their disposal, but if she couldn't use them when the chips were down, they meant nothing.

"This whole thing is infuriating." Scott said, finally turning away from Jean, when it became obvious that she didn't want to say anymore to him, "I mean, we didn't just lose. They had us. They totally had us pegged, and then they just up and left. I mean, they let us go! What does that say about all our training? What does that say about the X-men?"

Even Logan didn't have a reply for those questions, as the blackbird lifted into the air, to head for home.

* * *

Quicksilver had insisted on speaking with Magneto almost the moment they'd gotten back to base, and conveniently, so had Pyro, so for a moment, Magneto had instructed Guardian to wait by the hangar doors, and taken the two dissatisfied young mutants into a secluded room, off one side of the hallway that the hangar opened up into.

"Is there a problem?" Magneto asked, as the two stood there before him, each feeling badly cheated, and hoping that he could resolve their respective issues.

"Yes." Pyro said, and for the moment, Pietro just decided to let him speak, "Your boy slugged me right across the face while we were down there."

Magneto looked down a little at Pyro, then looked away for a moment, as if contemplating a serious, philosophical quandary. At last, he asked, "That's a serious accusation. Can you prove to me that Quicksilver is responsible for your injury?"

Pyro was flabbergasted, but there wasn't any proof, so he had no choice but to shake his head.

"Did you see Quicksilver attack you?" Magneto asked, and again, Pyro shook his head. Of course he hadn't seen Quicksilver's attack. It had been too fast.

"I think it's possible that in the heat of battle, one of the X-men may have snuck up and got the drop on you, Pyro." Magneto said sternly, "In either case, you'll need to wash off. In the future, when I design some light armor for the Allies, this sort of thing will be avoidable. In the meantime, please don't level unfounded accusations. We're Allies because we're united. The last thing we need is disunity."

Pyro was still furious, but there wasn't anything he could really do about it. Without saying another word, he left that room, and stormed down the hall towards his quarters.

As soon as Pyro had left, however, Magneto closed the door with a smile on his face, but a sad look in his eyes. Pietro saw volumes of confusing and complicated emotions written into that expression, all of them focused on the young teenager who'd just left. At that point, Pietro saw some part of the truth about Magneto, and knew that he had to fess up to what he'd done, or he'd feel guilty over it for the rest of his life.

"He wasn't lying, you know." Pietro confessed, "I really did punch him."

"Yes, I know." Magneto replied, "Furthermore, I know why, and thank you for showing him that his actions have consequences. He definitely had it coming. The boy's a delinquent."

"What?" Pietro was very confused by that reply, "You mean you wanted me to punch him?"

"I knew it would wind up happening." Magneto explained, "Pyro is obsessed with using his mutant powers to torment anyone weaker than him. If he were human, he'd be the kind that tortured small animals. Frankly, I doubt he could ever become a constructive member of any society, but if he has any such hopes at all, he still has many lessons to learn about fairness with, and respect for others. It's a good thing you decided to at least try to teach him one. I hope he learns the right lesson from it."

Pietro, however, was still badly confused, and very irritated. He had many more questions to ask Magneto, and soon, they came out in a rain of bewilderment.

"If he's such a jerk, why do you keep him around?"

"There are a couple of reasons. I'd rather not refuse any mutant membership into the Allies based on their mentality alone, for one. If they seem eager to do harm to their fellow Allies, I wouldn't accept them as a member, but other than that, I think it sends a good message to accept people of all kinds. Of course, the real reason I've kept him around so long is that I still need his help. He may be a problem at times, but he follows orders to the letter, and he'll obey me when I give him specific-enough instructions. It seems to me that those are the important things."

"There's one more thing I don't get." Pietro continued, still puzzled by the whole situation, "You said you were happy that I disciplined him. Why didn't you do it yourself?"

"You must understand," Magneto said, sighing deeply as he turned to look at his son, "Pyro attacked his own parents, and fled his home at a very young age, because of how furious he was with any authority figure who would try to punish him. He follows my orders out of gratitude, in exchange for the accommodations I've offered him, but truthfully, I don't think he sees me as an authority figure, so much as a liberator. You, on the other hand, also follow my orders. You're clearly not an authority figure in Pyro's life, so much as a co-worker and ally, and because of that, punishments that you deliver, while still unpleasant to him, no longer seem high-and-mighty, or condescending. If I tried to punish him for his misdeeds, he'd see me as someone who only wanted him around so that I could mistreat him, and build up my own ego, and if he thought about me that way, he'd almost certainly leave the Allies."

Pietro nodded a little. It was complicated, but he understood.

"One last thing." Magneto said, as he turned and opened the door leading into the hallway, "I'll be informing the others of this soon, but our newest member calls himself 'Guardian.' He doesn't speak English, but he says he'll make an effort to learn it, and his mutant powers only function when others believe that he has them. I've chosen to believe in him, but I suspect your faith will be needed as well. He claims that the more people who believe in him, the stronger he'll become. Based on the evidence I've gathered, I'm inclined to believe him about that. If he's right, he could be a great champion of our cause. Please try to believe in him, as I do."

However, as Magneto left, Pietro was much too distracted to think about having faith in anyone. There were all sorts of things that he needed to consider.

* * *

Professor Xavier had tried to get back to his scheduling duties after the X-men had left for their latest mission, but it hadn't been easy. Many thoughts had attempted to distract him. Of course, as a master of thoughts, the Professor had eventually prevailed over them, and gotten the work done in spite of them, but it had taken a while. When Mccoy had contacted him, to inform him of how the second mission against Magneto had gone, the Professor had felt even more distracted. Two failures, one so soon after the other... It worried him. Apparently, however, he wasn't the only one who'd been worried by the X-men's second failure. A few minutes after the X-men had returned to the Institute, Xavier heard a knock on his door. He only needed to briefly sense outside his office, before he noticed that it was Jean on the other side; feeling worried, and full of self-doubt. They were feelings that weren't uncommon for her.

"Come in." the Professor said, so Jean slowly opened the door, and stepped inside with much trepidation.

"Professor?" she asked timidly, "If you're not busy, there's um... something I need your help with."

"Certainly, Jean." Xavier replied, wheeling himself out from behind his desk, "What can I do for you?"

Jean, however, still looked very timid and sad, as she grabbed a chair, and took a seat in it. Obviously, what she wanted was difficult to explain.

"Professor," she said at last, "when I went out on that mission today, I tried to use my powers. I got very angry and afraid, and I lost my focus. I... I want to be helpful, but... I need to be in control of my own powers..."

The Professor smiled, as he replied kindly to her, however.

"In other words, you want a means of increasing your focus during times of great stress."

"Well..." Jean muttered. The answer, of course, was yes, but she only gave it in her thoughts. The Professor, however, was starting to look sad himself, as he replied to what she'd requested.

"I'm afraid that's not my area of expertise. I could give you some assistance in managing your emotions, to prevent them from getting in the way, but most of my training in my psychic powers occurred after I'd grown up, and was no longer involved in battles. I can suppress stress; postpone it... I can even prevent it entirely in many instances, but there are some cases in which stress is unavoidable, and I also am not at my best in those instances."

Jean felt her heart sinking when the Professor said that, eventually asking one last question, in which all her remaining hopes had been hidden away.

"Then what am I supposed to do now?"

"For my part..." Xavier began, "I decided, in time, that my powers were obviously better when used for peaceful things; that indeed, psychic powers like mine were not for use in ordinary battles. However, I doubt such a resolution would satisfy you."

Jean didn't even bother replying to that. She couldn't just give up on trying to help her friends in battle after having seen how desperately they'd needed her that day.

"I hesitate to make this recommendation, because I know it may lead you into much pain and hardship," Xavier finally said, "but there is one person I know whose skill and focus increase to a fine point when he becomes angry; mister Logan."

Jean's face flushed when the Professor said that. She'd always avoided Logan, because of his willingness to hurt people, as well as his methods and tactics, which were often efficient to the point of being brutal. He was obviously a military man, and Jean didn't like that at all; that fire within him that would barely even hesitate to kill. Still, as Jean looked helplessly into the Professor's eyes, she knew that it was the only advice he could have given her that was worth considering. If she really wanted to keep her focus when the heat was on, she had to go to Logan.

* * *

It was almost dusk by the time Jean worked up the nerve to knock on Logan's door, and after about five seconds, it opened, and Jean saw him standing there, looking at her with some surprise. He wasn't a very tall man. In fact, he wasn't much taller than she was, and yet, she couldn't help but find him intimidating, as he looked at her from the other side of the doorway.

"Jean." Logan noticed with just a little surprise, "What's up?"

"I..." Jean began, not sure how to finish the sentence, "I need your help. See, I have to be able to focus, if I want to use my powers, and... Well... Professor X says you can..."

"Wait a minute." Logan said, holding up one hand in apparent interest, "What did you just say?"

"I said the Professor..."

"Professor X?" Logan asked, a wicked-looking grin suddenly sweeping across his face as he spoke, "Yeah, I like the sound of that. I've been wondering what to call him over the radio waves that wouldn't attract suspicion. Thanks a bunch, Jean. But go ahead; continue."

"Well, the Professor told me that you're the only person he knows who can maintain their focus when they're upset or afraid," Jean said, hurrying through the sentence in a desperate attempt to avoid any more interruptions, her face turning more and more red the whole time, until it almost matched the color of her hair, "and I need you to teach me how to do that."

Logan just stared Jean in the eyes for several seconds, apparently perplexed over what to do in response. At last, afraid that he was going to refuse, Jean said "Please."

That was all Logan needed to hear to jolt him out of his train of thought.

"You don't know what you're asking for, hon." Logan said, turning around quickly, but just as he was about to close the door to his room again, Jean stuck her foot in the way. Logan spun around at that moment, and looked back into her eyes again. He'd been furious when she'd done that, but the fury faded quickly, as he continued to look at her. For Logan, it had never happened that way before.

"Don't turn me away, Logan." Jean said, "Until I can maintain my focus, I'm no good to anyone in a fight, and until I can help protect my friends, I won't be satisfied. You have to help show me the way."

Logan had both eyes nearly closed, as he faced her after that statement. It was, he knew, the only way he could make the decision, without any concern over her getting hurt.

"Look, Jean." Logan said at last, "There's things about me you wouldn't want to know; scary things that could drive most men mad. I ain't no nice person by nature. By nature, I'm a wild animal. I only got where I am now with lots and lots of hard work, and intense training. You may have a strong motive for wanting this skill of mine, but it ain't like what I had. I don't think you'd be able to do what it takes."

"Try me." Jean said angrily, looking with great sternness into Logan's face, but he couldn't deny her anymore.

"Alright, suit yourself, but we can't do it here." Logan agreed at last.

"Are we going to the danger room?" Jean asked.

"Nah." Logan replied, looking as if he was trying to force himself to be casual about it, "The woods out back, behind the mansion oughtta to be good enough. Meet me there in five minutes."

* * *

Jean was alone in the woods. She'd been expecting to see Logan as soon as she got there, but it seemed as if he hadn't arrived just yet. As she looked around for him, however, she felt a rush of wind behind her, and spun around to see a large tree branch falling to the ground, inches away from her. Jean's heart leapt into her throat, as she covered her face with her hands, stepping back away from the dust. Then, there was a thud from behind her again, and she felt a hard, round object slamming into her legs from behind. She tripped and fell to the ground, only to look up, and see another large tree branch headed directly for her. Quickly, she rolled to one side, through the dirt, only barely avoiding being squashed under the branch, and when she got back to her feet, she could hear the sound of sarcastic clapping from nearby.

"That was a little sad," Logan said, "but I see why you need my help now."

"Logan!" Jean exclaimed, "Did you do that? Is that your idea of training?"

"That's how it is." Logan replied in a no-nonsense tone of voice, "If you want to be quick and focused, the only real way to get there is to know what it means to fight for your life. If you don't know that, you can't do squat."

"But you assaulted me!" Jean exclaimed angrily.

"Like I said," Logan replied, turning away from her, "you don't really want my skill. You may as well go back to the mansion. Don't bother askin' again."

Jean felt hurt and angry all at once, as she listened to Logan's words, but despite the unfairness of the situation, and the danger and discomfort involved, Jean knew that she couldn't just turn away from Logan's training. She needed the skills that he had.

"Can I ask you one thing before we start up again?" Jean requested in clear irritation, "Is it alright if I hate you by the time this training's over?"

"That's kind of the whole point," Logan said sadly, "much as I wish there was another way..."

Then, he ducked behind a tree, and Jean knew she'd have to prepare for his next attack.

* * *

Scott Summers had been absolutely furious that things had gone so badly for the X-men that day, so he'd done exactly what he always did when he was furious; he headed to the gym for a workout. Workouts were Scott's biggest picker-upper. They always made him feel good, no matter how he'd been feeling before he started, and as he climbed over various metal bars, between the floor and the gym ceiling, he heard the doors to the gym closing, and realized that someone was in there with him.

Quickly flipping over in mid-air, Scott descended the bars upside-down on his hands, then, when he was about nine feet from the ground, he pushed off from the bars, doing a somersault in mid-air, before landing, feet first on the gym mat, and looking around for whoever it was that had entered the gym after him. Since the Danger Room's creation, hardly any of the others ever used the gym for anything, since Scott was the only one who really exercised to unwind.

However, when Scott found himself facing Jean Grey, his old feelings of worry returned almost at once. Jean was covered in bruises and small scrapes.

"Jean!" Scott exclaimed, rushing up to her, but not daring to try to touch her, for fear of aggravating some of her injuries, "Jean, are you alright? Who did this to you?"

Jean, however, looked him right in the eye with a boldness he'd never seen her display before. Soon, she said, "I did, Scott. I'm training to overcome my fears. I was afraid during today's fight, and... I didn't want to be afraid. I wanted to be able to do more, Scott. Until I can overcome my fears, I'm not much good to the X-men."

"Oh, come on, Jean." Scott said, trying to sound as gentle as he could, though he was almost panicking inside, "You didn't have to... Well, you didn't have to beat yourself up... I guess... Gee."

"Well, it's not important anyway." Jean said, "Actually, I wanted to ask you if you wanted to grab a soda over at Bernie's."

Bernie's, of course, was a restaurant not far from the Xavier Institute, which, according to most people who'd been there even once, made some of the best sodas in all of New York State.

Scott was still worried about Jean, and he hoped she wouldn't continue injuring herself, just because he got so upset whenever they failed. That having been said...

"Yeah." Scott said with a smile, "I'd love to."

* * *

For about fifteen minutes, Scott and Jean had sat at one of the booths in Bernie's. They'd spent a few minutes waiting for the soda to arrive, then more time was spent discussing how Scott felt after working out, as well as Jean's feelings recently, and how they'd gotten in her way. It was pretty heavy discussion for a casual setting like Bernie's, but neither of them was sure what else to talk about until, just after their eighteenth minute passed in that place, they heard a loud thud, and a thick, rough voice, telling the man at the front of the restaurant what kind of soda he wanted.

Scott seemed very worried as he looked across the room, towards the young man who'd just sat down near the front of the restaurant. He wore large boots, long, black pants, and a white shirt, with a thin, black jacket over his back. His hair was a mild brownish-blond, like dark mustard, and he was very large and round. Jean recognized him just as well as Scott did, the moment she turned around and saw him. He was one of the mutants who'd attacked the Institute alongside Anna; one of the most powerful members of the brotherhood of mutants.

Fred Dukes was back in town.

* * *

End


	19. X Men 3: The Search for Answers

X-Men Neo

Issue 3

"The Search for Answers"

* * *

"What are you doing here?" Scott demanded as he got to his feet and headed over to where Dukes was seated. The larger boy glanced at him, then went back to leaning on the counter.

"Careful there, pipsqueak." Dukes said, "This could get rough if you don't watch what you say."

"Is Anna back in town?" Scott asked, a little more politely, but not by much, "Is she going to make another attempt?"

"Well, if by 'town' you mean New York City, then yeah. She is." Fred replied, "As for whether she still wants your professor, I'm thinkin' no, but you never know for sure. I can't predict her anymore'n I can control her."

"What about you?" Scott asked, "What are your plans?"

"I plan on havin' one of the best sodas in New York." Fred said, "Now, unless you wanna introduce yerselves formally, why doncha shaddup? I'm tryin' to relax, and you dweebs ain't helpin'."

Up to that point, Scott had seriously never considered the possibility that the two of them running into the larger mutant like that had been a coincidence. However, when he let his pent-up emotions drift to one side, and considered the situation more calmly, he quickly started to realize that the bigger boy really hadn't done anything to them since he'd stepped into the restaurant, except insult them a few times. Scott was still a little sore over the trespassing and assault that Dukes had committed against them the last couple of times he'd been on the Institute grounds, but he wasn't as convinced of Fred's malicious intent as he'd first been.

"Sorry." Scott said, "I didn't know. I mean, I thought you were following us."

"Nope." was the reply.

Scott immediately felt pretty silly. Of course, he wasn't really considering trying to punish the bigger mutant for what he'd done in the past, so he felt compelled to introduce himself, if only to cover up his mistake in assuming the worst of his former enemy.

"Sorry again." Scott said, "My... ah... My name is Scott Summers."

The bigger mutant turned in his seat to face Scott almost as soon as he heard that. He couldn't believe his ears.

"Fred Dukes." he finally said, holding out one hand with some suspicion, but Scott shook it quickly enough, without really thinking about the fact that the person he was shaking hands with could easily have torn his arm from its socket.

Dukes, however, didn't seem eager to do any such thing, and in fact, when his soda arrived just a moment later, he started drinking it with almost total indifference. At last, however, he turned to face Jean, who was pleased to see that Dukes wasn't threatening them for the time being, even though she was sure she still didn't like him very much. When he turned to look at her, she felt very much like she was being put on the spot. Dukes was a lot bigger than either of them, and he was very intimidating, because of not only his size, but his gruff attitude. Still, Jean forced herself to consider, that attitude might have been a behavior he'd picked up after years and years of social and romantic rejection, due to his abnormal height and body shape.

"You got a name?" Dukes asked.

"J-Jean Grey." she stammered, trying her best to look him in the eyes as she spoke.

"Cool." Dukes replied, turning back to his soda, "Did you two come here for the soda too?"

"It's the best I've ever had." Jean admitted, having an easier time talking to Dukes when he wasn't looking directly at her.

"You've got good taste for a skinny kid." Dukes noted, "There's other spots I go for other kinds of food, but nobody does soda like Bernie's."

"Are you still working with Anna?" Scott asked as casually as he could.

"Workin'?" Dukes asked in surprise, "I wouldn't call it that."

"You don't mean that you two are... involved?" Scott asked, amazed and a little frightened by the idea.

"Well, kinda." Dukes said, "We're best friends. 'Course things can't get more serious than that between us. Partly because of... Well, you know. Partly 'cause of the problem with her powers."

"Anna's been having problems?" Scott asked, deeply interested on more than one level.

"Anna's got the power to absorb people she touches and holds onto for long enough." Fred said solemnly, "Not sure how it works, but it's like they die and become a part of her. Anyways, she starts using her power as soon as she touches somebody, and she can't turn it off, which means..."

"Which means she can never touch another human being for very long without killing them." Jean realized sadly, "That must be horrible."

"Well, she didn't used to mind it so much." Dukes explained with a shrug, "These days, it seems like she's sad about it at least once a week. Still, not having to be lonely helps. She's... Well, it's a relationship, anyways, even if it's a little weird."

Jean nodded. She wasn't sure she understood all of what Fred was talking about, but when she'd heard him say the word "relationship," she got an image in her head of Anna, all bundled up in thick clothes and a full facial mask, hugging one of the few people in the world who wouldn't have been crushed in her grip. It was a distracting thought, and she hoped, for a moment, that it belonged to her, and not to Fred.

"If the two of you ever want to try and get an education, there's always room at the Xavier Institute." Scott said, trying his best to smile, "I'll bet I could persuade the Professor to give the two of you a chance, and..."

Dukes, however, was shaking his head rapidly by that point.

"No thanks." he said, "The school thing isn't for me."

"Why not, Fred?" Jean asked, confused.

"I've been to schools before." Fred replied, "No thanks."

However, he wouldn't say any more about it than that, so although it made Scott feel just a little sad, he knew there was nothing more to be done.

"Well, I'm just glad we're not enemies anymore." Scott said, "I'll see you around, I guess. Look us up if you ever need to talk."

"Yeah." Dukes replied, though neither Scott nor Jean could tell whether he was being sarcastic or not as they left the restaurant to head back to the school that was their home.

* * *

"Jubes! Jubes, where are you going?" Illyana asked as Jubilation Lee ran out of an arcade as fast as she could.

"No time to explain!" Jubilation said, "Just run!"

Illyana had fallen behind when Jubilation had run past her a moment before, but she quickly caught up, despite the fact that Jubilation was running top speed herself.

"Why are we running?" Illyana asked, not short of breath at all, which made Jubes feel painfully envious of the younger girl's speed, "Have you entered us into some kind of contest?"

"Not exactly." Jubilation said, "There's a few people behind us who... Well, I broke one of their machines by accident. Long story. Anyway, they want to catch me, so that..."

"Pursuers, eh?" Illyana asked with a wicked smile, and had stopped running almost at once, to head back towards the mob that was following them.

"Illyana!" Jubilation exclaimed in a sudden panic, turning around herself, "Illyana, don't!"

However, it was too late. Illyana had reached the three charging figures; two of them members of the crew that managed the arcade, while the last was a police officer. At once, Illyana had leapt into the air, grabbed the mall cop by the shoulders, and smashed her forehead into his with an ear-splitting crack.

Fortunately, neither of them seemed to be visibly injured by what Illyana had done, but the officer fell to the ground, unconscious, and the other two who'd been with him fled in shock and terror.

"Well, that was easy." Illyana remarked as she returned to where Jubilation was standing, stunned and terrified, "Kind of anticlimactic really."

"What... what did you have to go and do that for?" Jubilation demanded angrily, drawing a look of puzzlement and confusion from Illyana.

"In Limbo, it's customary to butcher pursuers in front of their allies to decrease the morale of your enemies." Illyana said, "Some of the daemons I've worked with have even gone so far as to eat the hearts of..."

"No, no, no!" Jubilation exclaimed, "You're not getting the idea at all. Cut!"

When Jubilation said that, the various advertisement posters, plastic flower displays, and marble floor tiles of that section of the mall slid away to be replaced by hard metal, though the lifelike, animatronic dummies that they'd been using as pursuers remained where they were. Once again, it was obvious that they were in the danger room, and not at a real mall. However, it was also obvious to Jubilee that it would be a while before Illyana could safely be taken to a real mall, given her condition and mental state.

"What?" Illyana asked, "What did I do wrong? I drove them off, didn't I? I didn't kill them, did I?"

Henry Mccoy sighed in disappointment from the control booth of the Danger Room. Like everyone else involved, he'd been hoping that Illyana would be able to pass the civil test the first time, but obviously, she needed to work at it a little more. Though reciprocating peaceful conduct had become a normal part of her life, she was still a little fuzzy about the idea of showing mercy on would-be attackers, or even avoiding fights she was sure she could win, and those were important skills. If Illyana wanted to live peacefully in the human world, she needed to be more peaceful than what she'd displayed just then.

"Look, the point of the whole exercise was to not get into a fight." Jubilee said angrily, "I thought you understood that."

"But if they didn't want a fight, why were they pursuing us?" Illyana asked.

"They wanted me to pay them for damaging their machine." Jubilee said, "That's not the same thing as wanting to cut your head off."

"It's too complicated." Illyana said, "In Limbo, things were simpler. In Limbo, it was kill or be..."

"Yeah. Yeah." Jubilation replied, turning away, "In Limbo, you would have conquered all your enemies and everyone would have worshiped you, but that's not going to fly on planet Earth. People here would hate you if you tried to do that."

"Hatred is a part of life." Illyana seemed to be trying to explain, "It's also a part of leadership. A leader who's despised and feared is more effective in..."

"Gah!" Jubilee exclaimed, "You're impossible! I give up!"

Then she stormed right out of the danger room in a fit. Jubilee usually considered herself the most eager of all the X-men for a fight, but Illyana was too much for her. Her vast, expansive powers made her an object of envy and discontent, and yet, because of her mentality, and seeming inability to grasp even simple things about human philosophy and conduct; the way she'd apparently been brainwashed by the time she'd spent in Limbo, she was a very easy person to grow frustrated with, and even to hate.

However, as Jubilee left the Danger Room in anger, Illyana knew better than to try to follow her. Instead, she waited until Jubilee was gone, and then left the Danger Room herself, looking at Mccoy for a moment in some confusion, though Illyana didn't seem the least bit ashamed or guilt-ridden over what she'd done.

"What did I do wrong?" Illyana asked, genuinely confused.

At that point, though, Mccoy could tell that he had some explaining to do.

"It isn't what you did, so much as the reasoning you used." Mccoy replied, "Though I'm sure you're attempting to act like a human, you continue to make reference to your experiences in Limbo in justifying your actions. Limbo was a very different kind of place from Earth. You must realize that."

"It's so hard." Illyana said, looking away, "Can you imagine being uprooted from your home and asked to live in an alien world under new, alien philosophies, that you think are foolish and ineffectual?"

"I have an excellent imagination." Mccoy replied, "I'm not a fair example. I'm sure there are many others who wouldn't be able to."

"That's how it is for me." Illyana said, "My life experiences in Limbo are all but useless to me here, and yet, they're the only life experiences that I have to draw on. I'm a survivor, and I'll rise to the challenge somehow, but it means segmenting the lessons I've learned completely in two, in keeping with the two different worlds I want to live in."

"There's another possibility, you know." Mccoy said, "You could just give up on Limbo completely. Without your powers, the daemons of Limbo wouldn't be able to come to Earth, or hurt anyone. You could live a perfectly normal, peaceful life among your own kind."

"The thought had occurred to me," Illyana admitted, "but I dismissed it at once. I'd rather die than turn my back on the causes that I learned to value as a child. I can live here among you, and act as if your way of life isn't shameful, but I'm only really contented and satisfied in battle. My heart is still of Limbo. Abandoning it is no kind of option at all."

Mccoy knew better than to try to argue the point, as Illyana also left the danger room without another word, to return to her own grimly-decorated quarters. It was a sad state of affairs, but from the looks of things, Illyana's new power and skill had come with a terrible price. She could never go back to being an innocent, human girl again.

* * *

Pietro was still having doubts about the choices that Magneto had made, the longer he stayed on Asteroid M. Considering the way that Magneto had used his powers to create such a rich, self-sustaining lifestyle for himself in that space-borne location, Pietro had started to realize that he also could have used his own powers to acquire what he needed for himself, and hardly anyone would have needed to notice. If he'd spent the rest of his life in speed mode, he could have spent his time reading, relaxing, and accomplishing nothing at all. Magneto probably could have done the same, but instead, he'd chosen to fight in a war. Until that point, it had been a war with few visible victims; a war to liberate the oppressed by admitting them into the group that Magneto was forming, but if it was anything like a real war, Magneto's war might soon result in someone dying, and Pietro didn't like that thought. It hadn't been all that long ago that he'd seen death much closer than he cared to, and it had taught him that he didn't like the look of death's face. In a way, though, he could see Magneto's point about ending unfairness and repairing the status quo, Pietro didn't want to see anyone suffer. That was why he was filled with worry when Magneto summoned the Allies to the guidance chamber again.

"It's almost time to make our move again." Magneto said with a smile as the last of the Allies arrived, with the exception of Guardian, who was still struggling with the finer points of the English language, "I've had several more demands sent to Washington, outlining what must be changed about government affairs, and what will happen if they refuse. Unfortunately, they don't seem to be taking any steps towards the changes I insisted upon, so we'll need to take corrective action, and I have a plan for how to do that."

Quickly, Magneto gestured to a nearby computer screen, which promptly lit up with an image of space, filled with large, faintly-glowing rocks that floated sideways in orbit around the Earth.

"This is an element that still hasn't been discovered by human scientists yet, because they've never had a solid sample of it to examine, as I have." Magneto said, "It's an alien element that has some very unusual properties, which I've never seen before in any other element. For one thing, electrical currents can be run through it, which creates a 'base' within the substance, on which most of the mass is redistributed... Well, you probably don't understand the significance of that, but it's very unique, and quite suited for use as a weapon. All that I need is a means of establishing an electrical current alongside some of these, and they'll plunge right towards Earth."

"Don't meteorites usually burn up when they get too close to planet Earth?" Ethereal asked, suspicious of the nature of the plan.

"Of course." Magneto replied, "Small meteorites made of conventional substances do burn up in Earth's atmosphere, but this substance is highly resistant to intense heat. We can definitely use it as a space-based weapon, we just need a means of channeling electricity through it from the bottom."

"Could the ship do that?" Pietro asked curiously.

"Naturally," Magneto replied, "but as soon as electricity is channeled through it, the meteorite's mass would drag it towards the planet. Unfortunately, if the ship was under it when that happened, it would be crushed to pieces almost at once."

"I can create electrically-charged force fields." Charge suggested, "Could I do it?"

"The problem with either of us using our powers to attempt to charge the meteorites, is that we'd have to be reasonably close to them to make it work." Magneto replied, "If they were in mid-air, it would be fine, but in the vacuum of space, even my electromagnetic fields can't protect me."

"Oh, yeah." Charge muttered, settling down as she looked away from Magneto and the others.

"Don't worry, though." Magneto said with a smile, drawing everyone's attention back to him, "I have a plan. We just need a type of machine that can be attached to the bottom of the meteorites remotely, and once there, can generate an enormous electric charge around itself, without damaging any of its systems. In other words, a jet-propelled electric field generator, and as luck would have it, the U.S. government has been kind enough to design that for us."

The image on the screen quickly changed when Magneto said that, showing a building with five sides; a building that nearly everyone there recognized.

"This is the Pentagon." Magneto said, "It's one of the largest military installations in the world. At the moment, one of its subbasements houses a mobile, electric-field generator, intended for use in quick repairs on the next big space flight; the flight to Mars. However, I think that we can probably make better use of it. Our job for today will be to break into this installation, take the machine and leave."

"Is the machine made of metal?" Ethereal asked, but the question brought a frown to Magneto's lips.

"Yes, it is." he said quickly, "The problem is, there's an electromagnetic scrambler field in place around most of the secure basement rooms of the Pentagon. I'd need to practice hard for many months to be able to penetrate it with my powers, much less remove an item from inside one of those fields by force, and it might be damaged in the process."

"In other words, we have to do this without much help from your powers." Pietro said.

"Yes. That's the long and short of it." Magneto replied, "Are you ready for a mission like that?"

Quicksilver didn't reply, although Impervious did.

"I don't know about him, but I'm ready."

* * *

The other members of the Allies all left the guidance chamber in a hurry, heading for the hangar. Magneto, however, had a few things to finish taking care of in the guidance chamber before he joined them, and since he knew he wasn't going to be late, Pietro decided to stay behind after the others had left, just to ask Magneto a few questions.

"I'm starting to have doubts about this, father." Pietro said when he was certain that all the others were out of earshot, "I feel like we're throwing the first punch; like we're out there trying to pick a fight."

"You've seen the news." Magneto replied casually as he went about his work, "You know how many laws and policies are unfair to mutants, and you know what it means to be a mutant in a human society, even when no laws interfere in your life."

"As far as laws go, though, aren't all minorities in the same boat?" Pietro asked, "I mean, no minority is completely supported by all the laws. Are things really so bad for mutants that we have to resort to this?"

"It isn't about how bad things are." Magneto said without a moment's hesitation, "The problem is, I expect things to become a lot worse for mutants very soon. Once people realize what a mutant really is, they'll hold committees, hearings, and even, I suspect, public hangings. As soon as mutants are brought into the public eye, people will be more afraid of us than ever. The only real question is what kind of impression we'll leave on people when that time comes. Will they see a vague threat in us; the same kind of threat they saw in you, and react the same way those fools from your hometown did, or will they see us as a strong group; powerful, and not to be trifled with? Will they fear us as superstitious rumors and indistinct dangers, or will they fear us as their new leaders? I wish that there were a choice other than those, Pietro, but there isn't."

Then, Pietro asked another question; one that showed him, for the first time, the forces and feelings that really guided Magneto's path in life.

"What if you're wrong, father? What if humans learn about us, and come to understand us?"

"The more humans understand what we are, the more they'll fear us." Magneto said, "Our powers are too great a threat to their lifestyles."

"What if they turn out to be reasonable, father? What if they don't react with violence?"

Magneto still didn't hesitate. He'd obviously had a long time to consider how he'd reply to such questions.

"What if they don't, Pietro?" Magneto asked, "What if the humans learn to accept mutants as part of their lives? What if they come to recognize the fair positions we deserve in their society and quickly come to grips with that? While you consider these thoughts, they'll be drawing their plans against us. Pietro, as much as we might both wish that mankind could get over its fear, anger and ego, I think we both know that isn't going to happen. Mutants are better off planning for the worst-case scenario. Pessimists tend to be right more often them optimists."

"One more thing," Magneto said, though it had become obvious that Quicksilver wasn't satisfied with his reply, "The line of reasoning that you just used is very similar to the kind that drives the thoughts of the X-men, who've turned against the wellbeing of their own kind. It would be better for you to rethink your standpoint about this. Remember, no one can predict the future. All we can do is prepare for it as best we can."

Pietro knew that he wasn't going to get a better reply from Magneto than that, so in spite of his doubts about the very nature of the mission, he shifted into speed mode and headed for the ship.

* * *

When Quicksilver got to Magneto's ship, everyone else was already seated, and in the process of buckling up, however just for a moment, he looked around at them before returning to normal speed. Magneto had spoken, a moment ago, as if Pietro's thoughts of optimism were in some way dangerous to the cause that they had before them, and yet, as he looked at the people who surrounded him, it seemed obvious that most of them had their own problems, or were otherwise incapable of thinking things through before they took action. Pyro was an obvious problem case, Impervious and Charge were so arrogant, that they could hardly have been counted on to consider the consequences of their actions. Toad was humble enough... In fact, he was a little too humble. He didn't consider his actions for himself; he just did what the others told him to. Ethereal, in turn, seemed to understand what was really going on, but in spite of her intelligence, she didn't look as if she cared about what happened to humans.

The fact that so few members of the Allies really seemed to have their own thoughts and feelings in order gave Pietro yet another reason to question the idea that they really believed in Magneto's cause, and if none of them believed in what Magneto wanted, then that made Pietro's father little more than one extremist, furious at the world, and desperate to make it what he wanted it to be, by any means necessary.

The only real x-factor preventing Pietro from dismissing Magneto like that was Tick, and that was because she never let anyone know how she was feeling, or what she really thought. Tick was a strange, shy sort of person, and by her own apparent will, Pietro knew much less about her than he did about the other Allies. Strangely, though, that hadn't piqued his curiosity until just then, when he'd paused for a tiny fraction of a second to think about it. That was when Pietro knew that he needed to know more about Tick, before he made any big decisions about the Allies.

Pietro sat down in a seat right next to Tick, and buckled up before he remembered that he was still in speed mode, and quickly turned off his mutant powers, to the surprise of everyone nearby. To them, it had looked as if he'd just appeared in the seat. Tick, whom he'd just "appeared" right next to, was so shocked that she screamed out loud.

"Tick!" Ethereal exclaimed, "It's just Pietro. Don't panic."

"I'm... I'm sorry." Tick said, having composed herself after just a few seconds.

"No." Pietro said, feeling rotten over having frightened her so badly, "That was really careless of me. I should have known better."

"You... uh... You did scare me." Tick admitted, "It's alright though. Don't worry."

It had been a relatively short conversation between the two of them, but it had taught Pietro a few things about Tick that he hadn't realized before. She wanted to be kind and caring, but she lacked courage and self-confidence, even more than Toad did. She was easily startled and frightened, and she was afraid that everyone else around her only cared about themselves, but she hardly ever thought about her own feelings. She was a very uncommon type of girl, and Pietro had great difficulty believing that she was suited for battle. Then again, her powers were largely peaceful in nature. She seemed to be able to freeze others in their tracks by a great effort, or speed up people's movements, including her own, just like Pietro did. Those kinds of powers were certainly great, but very defensive. It was hard to picture her getting into a fight with anyone, without becoming terrified and losing her composure, and they were about to barge into one of the most heavily-guarded military installations in the world. It was pretty clear to Pietro, by that point, just why Magneto had mostly been using Tick's powers as a means of escape, rather than on the front lines. Psychologically, she never would have survived out there.

By the time Magneto arrived in the ship, and took his position in the pilot's seat, Pietro had a lot of new facts to roll over in his head, but he knew he had to practice ignoring them, at least for a few hours. Whatever Pietro decided to do on the next day, or the day after that, right then and there, he was going to break into the Pentagon.

* * *

Mccoy was starting to feel more and more worried every time Magneto sent a ship out from his asteroid base. Their first victory over Magneto at the Nevada missile base had been over so quickly, that it had led Mccoy into a false sense of security. The fact that the X-men hadn't managed to stop Magneto since then had put several cracks in Mccoy's confidence, but when he saw the direction that Magneto's ship was traveling in, and where it led, he knew that whether the X-men could win or not, they had to try.

"X-men." Henry Mccoy thought silently, trusting Xavier to relay his message, "There's an emergency."

* * *

Jean Grey waited for the door to close behind her before she started to change into her disguise as Marvel Girl, however, almost as soon as she stepped out of the changing chamber, there was Cyclops, looking upset with her.

"You don't have to come, Jean."

"I'm an X-man." Jean replied quickly, "I do."

"You should take some time to get over those injuries first." Scott suggested, but when Jean heard that, she just smiled. She probably could have burst out laughing instead, because Scott's concern over such a small thing was so funny. She wouldn't have called them "injuries." They were a few scrapes; a couple bumps and bruises, and she'd basically gotten them on purpose. She didn't want him telling her that she couldn't live her life the way she wanted to.

"Scott," she said, "this is my choice to make. I got these scrapes because of a new type of training I'm putting myself through to improve my concentration, not because I thought they looked pretty. If I can concentrate through the pain, I'll be able to keep it up through fear and anger as well, and if I can't... Then nothing else I do matters. Unless I can concentrate, I might as well be just another teenager in a costume. I'm no good to the X-men unless I can take this kind of risk for myself, and you have to let me. Don't tell me I can't do things this way."

"I... don't like seeing you get hurt." Scott said, but Jean just shook her head.

"I don't like it either," she replied simply, "but that doesn't mean there's another way."

From not too far away, Logan grinned as his sharp hearing picked up Jean's words. It was encouraging that she'd come to understand that fact of life so well. Sometimes, to get what you want, you have to do things you don't like. In the end, Jean was going with the X-men on their latest mission, whether they liked it or not.

* * *

The first move had been Ethereal's to make. She could transform inorganic matter into the same kind of mist-like substance that she changed her own body into from a distance, and so, her first move had been to evaporate the guns of everyone near the pentagon building. Once the security personnel were unarmed, Charge made her move, forming a power field over herself, which started growing visibly around her as she advanced toward the building. A few of the guards tried to break through the field, but without any weapons, they couldn't have penetrated her defenses, and were soon rendered unconscious and convulsing by the powerful electric charges that she kept channeling through her force field barrier. In just a few more moments, the barrier had also broken down the doors on one side of the Pentagon, at which point it shrank down to its normal size; surrounding Charge's body more closely.

Quicksilver's task was next. Shifting into super speed, he stepped inside the building, and around many frozen people, apparently panicking. He spent what felt like an hour searching for the entrance into the basement, but it was really more like three seconds, and when he returned to the other Allies, to tell them what he'd discovered, Magneto just nodded, and started giving instructions to the others. Soon, Impervious had rushed in, followed closely by Pyro and Toad, and in moments, a path had been cleared into the building. That was when the X-men arrived.

Magneto was the first to notice the blackbird as it approached from the air, but the others soon noticed it as well. The plane descended rapidly towards their own ship, as Magneto sadly shook his head.

Magneto's mutant abilities were many and powerful. His unusual body chemistry afforded him an impressive defense from the blows of ordinary humans, and well as a strong defense from psychic attacks, which he'd increased with a device embedded in his helmet. He could create, move and shape energy fields like the one he'd ridden in with Pietro just shortly after they'd first met, and through the use of that power, he could travel freely through the air. However, there was one more ability that Magneto possessed; perhaps his greatest. Because the frequency on which his brain operated was so similar to the one found in the earth's magnetic field, Magneto had almost total control of the force of magnetism, which meant, through proper application of his powers, that he could manipulate metal in any way he desired.

When Magneto looked towards the X-men's plane, its jets turned off, and its forward momentum slowed, then it finally came to a stop. At last, as the entire jet hung in mid-air, Magneto turned to face Pietro again.

"Of course, you know that in seconds, they'll start abandoning their craft." Magneto started to explain to his allies, "We'll have to cope with the X-men one way or another, but I'd rather not kill them if it can be helped. There's always the chance that one or more of them may realize that I was right. For now, our focus should be on driving them away. Pyro and I will continue on into the installation, but I'm leaving the rest of your here, to give the X-men a fight. If you can drive them away quickly, then you and you alone can follow me in. The rest are to head back to the ship and defend it from military attack."

Soon, Magneto had turned around, and was headed for the open entrance to the Pentagon, as the blackbird descended rapidly to the ground with a crash, undoubtedly damaging the landing gear that had opened in its base. Still, the place was bound to be swarming with X-men soon. Pietro had to hope that none of them were as fast as he was.

Soon, one of the side hatches on the blackbird swung open, and a beam of crimson force shot out through it, tearing through Charge's force field, with just enough power left over to knock her unconscious. In seconds more, there was a puff of dark smoke, and Nightcrawler had pounced on Toad again. Both of them had soon vanished in another puff of smoke, and still, none of the X-men had touched the ground outside the plane yet.

That was when Quicksilver decided to stop playing it safe. He had some pretty impressive powers himself, and he was determined to use them to make a difference, one way or another. He shifted quickly into speed mode and started running rapidly around the plane. The strange thing was that although he was running as fast as needed to, in order to create a cyclone, no cyclone was forming, and after a while, Pietro realized why. There was a dark-skinned girl, with white hair flying in midair, only a few yards from the ground, and she seemed to be gesturing to the plane, as if intentionally keeping it in place; controlling the wind, against everything that Pietro was trying to accomplish. The worst part of that was that there wasn't much Pietro could do about it. She wasn't moving anywhere near as fast as he was, but she was still in mid-air, and he was stuck on the ground. Eventually, Pietro decided that it was pointless to keep competing with her, and rushed over to the other side of the plane, to see if he could find some way to climb inside it.

As it turned out, though, Pietro didn't even need to climb into the plane. Most of the X-men were already on the ground, outside of it by that point. There was one that Pietro didn't think he could defeat; a tall, teenage boy who seemed to be made of metal. There was also another who was completely encased in ice, but the rest of them looked like regular old flesh and blood, and considering how much momentum he built up just by being in speed mode, Pietro was confident he could defeat most of them by himself.

Pietro's first attack was against the one with the visor. He went down with just a few well-placed punches. After that, he went after another one; a short man dressed in blue, black and yellow with three metal claws attached to each hand. The man had his guard up, but Pietro got around it in a flash, knocking him to one side with a kick. However, as his enemy fell to the ground, Pietro had started to feel a little worried. He could have sworn that the last man's eyes had followed him just a little while he'd been attacking, almost as if the strange, shorter man in the yellow had been able to see Pietro.

Pietro, however, wasn't about to leave his job half-finished, and he could see that the man in the yellow was still conscious, as both of his arms hit the ground hard, so Pietro ran towards him, about to deliver another attack, when the man's legs rose up into the air, in what could be considered a kick. To Pietro, the kick seemed extremely slow, but he was still going too fast to avoid it, and when he collided face-first with his intended victim's boots, he could feel his whole body losing momentum. He flew backwards, away from those boots and their owner, but the attack had really shaken him up, and he suspected that it had probably done some kind of damage to his jaw in the process.

Pietro still couldn't believe that the man in the yellow outfit had been able to keep track of him, much less retaliate with a kick. There was obviously more to that man that just an ordinary mutant, or even an ordinary fighter. He had to be older than the others, and a lot more experienced, and even then, it was a miracle what he'd managed. Pietro wasn't eager to see it happen again, however, so he backed off a little, heading closer to his teammates. Ethereal looked a little worried, while Impervious was charging right for the enemy. Tick looked terrified, because she knew how badly outnumbered the rest of them were. Pietro had been somewhat worried since Magneto had left; concerned that the Allies might have spread their forces too thin during that mission, but he'd hoped that his powers of superhuman speed would have given them as big an advantage as they had before. It seemed, however, that some members of the X-men had been left behind during the previous battle. At that point, they were attacking full force, and although Pietro was fairly certain that he could escape if he had to, he didn't think they could really win. Based on how things stood at that point, it would have been a large victory if they were able to hold the X-men at bay for five minutes.

For a moment, Pietro returned to regular speed, watching as Impervious charged at the man in the yellow, shrugging off his attacks, as well as a few tiny bombs being thrown at him by the black-haired girl, that Pietro had knocked out during their last battle.

Quickly, Pietro tapped Tick on the shoulder. She didn't scream when he did that, but she did give a start in alarm. When she saw who it was, she seemed to calm down.

"Follow me." Pietro said, and in a moment, he'd shifted back into speed mode, hoping that she'd know enough to follow suit. Sure enough, in moments, her hands had started to glow, and she was keeping up with him again, having increased her own speed. It was only then, when each of them was traveling faster than anyone else around them, that Pietro noticed the problem with his plan to have a private talk with her. He'd never actually tried to talk in speed mode before, but it soon became obvious that sound just didn't travel that fast. Pietro would have had to wait quite some time, to even be able to hear the sound of his own voice when he spoke.

Tick didn't seem to understand what Pietro wanted, but in a few moments, he'd found a means of getting around the limitation of being unable to converse with super speed. He ran over to a nearby patch of dirt and grass, and started pulling the grass up, running his fingers through the dirt. Before long, he'd written a message in the earth.

"Not looking good." the message said.

Tick seemed very confused for a moment, but soon, she'd erased his message, and written one of her own.

"What do we do?"

"We could still get away." was Pietro's reply.

"Magneto would be mad."

"Why do you follow Magneto?"

When Pietro had asked her that question, however, she started writing a disappointing reply.

"Long story. Talk later."

Pietro rolled his eyes, which Tick seemed to notice, so she hurriedly added "seriously" to the end of that last reply. It wasn't much of an addition, but Pietro decided to interpret it as her promise that she was going to explain things to him at some later time. It was another fairly good reason for the two of them to somehow make it out of there in one piece.

"One of us needs to get Magneto." Tick scratched into the dirt at last.

"Maybe I should." Pietro carved back into the ground with his finger, "He didn't want anyone else to follow him in."

Tick just nodded once, as the two of them returned to normal speed simultaneously, and immediately noticed that something new was happening.

There was a red-haired girl with the X-men. She was dressed in a dark green outfit, with a black mask, and she seemed to be in some kind of pain, although no one had attacked her throughout the entire fight. Pietro remembered her as the one who Pyro had wanted to kill, which had forced him to step in. He doubted very much that he and Pyro could ever have gotten along, but their enmity for one another might have taken longer to build up if not for the incident with the red-haired girl.

However, something seemed to be happening to the girl. Pietro had thought, before, that her powers must have been insignificant, because Pyro had defeated her so easily, but perhaps there was merely some requirement she needed to fulfill before she could use them; just like Guardian.

* * *

It would have been hard to describe the battle up to that point as anything other than chaos for the X-men. There had been a number of threats popping up all at once, after Cyclops had fired the first shot from the blackbird's hatch, and they'd needed to respond to them as quickly as they could. That alone had been extremely difficult. Storm had needed to stay out of the fight for a while, in order to subdue an artificial hurricane that had been about to form around the blackbird, and as soon as they'd left the plane, they'd fallen under attack by an unseen enemy. Cyclops had been the first to go down, then Logan, who seemed to have retaliated to the attack that had knocked him down before getting back up again. At that point, another enemy mutant had charged right into their midst, who seemed to be impervious to all of their attacks. However, Jean Grey hadn't really noticed much of what Logan had done after Scott had fallen to the ground, unconscious. All she'd thought about was finding some way to use her full powers. It wasn't just something she wanted to be able to do anymore; it wasn't just about her. She needed to use her powers to protect the people she cared about most. When she'd realized that, Jean had immediately started trying to focus again, struggling to master her powers as the battle raged around her.

Jean could feel distractions forming all around her as she concentrated. The ground underneath the X-men was rapidly turning into mist, and forcing them all to struggle to keep their balance, and through it all, the impervious mutant was taking advantage of that, getting closer and closer to Jean's position as he moved. In that moment, Jean knew that she couldn't stop herself from feeling angry and afraid when she was out in the middle of a fight with other mutants, no matter how much support she had from her friends, and she began to understand what Logan had been telling her in their training sessions.

Logan had told Jean that the entire point of her training sessions with him was to make her hate him, but it would have been more accurate to say that the point had been to make her angry, and that was when Jean saw Logan's true aims, and turned to look at him in amazement as he climbed to his feet. Then she felt a thought shooting through her mind, and realized that it belonged to Logan.

"You can't sit on your anger. You've gotta use it. Don't let yourself lose control. Control your anger. C'mon, Jean."

With that, images flooded into Jean's mind; images of wars fought and battles won and lost; of monstrous enemies who killed for personal and political reasons, and of the need; the yearning to kill them in exchange. There were images of shame and grief over past actions, hard lessons learned from old masters in far-off lands and grave disappointments suffered at the hands of those who were most beloved. Finally, there was the faith of an old friend, the dedication to students who depended upon it, and the struggle for a dream where, just once, hope was to be found. They were less like memories than vague images, but in them, Jean saw Logan's life outlined; the struggles and horrors he'd endured, the betrayals he'd suffered at the hands of human society, and yet, his continual struggle to find some way to be a part of it. He'd lived his life, struggling with his anger, until at last, he'd found the one skill that would enable him to survive among civilized people; the skill of harnessing his anger; riding it, rather than being driven by it, and in a flash, Jean knew what she had to do, as something clicked into place in her own mind.

Suddenly, harsh winds picked up around Jean Grey, as a blast of power shot out from her in all directions, driving back her enemies, and forcing even the X-men to fall to the ground. Jean felt both her powers and senses opening like a floodgate, as new information filled her thoughts from everyone around her; the plans they were making, the damage they'd done to the plane, and what they really wanted from the Pentagon. In a flash, Jean understood it all, and she felt her powers growing in intensity, exploding outwards from her all at once. She'd managed to maintain her concentration while furious. In fact, she was starting to concentrate even better when she was upset. All she had to do was direct that power.

Quickly, Jean's attention turned to Impervious, Ethereal, Quicksilver and Tick, and in just a moment more, each went flying into the air. It looked as if the battle was won, but just then, there was a massive tremor in the ground underneath the X-men, causing them to lose their balance again, and Jean to lose her concentration. In only a second more, a large, fiery explosion erupted from the ground right underneath their feet, and up through the hole in the ground rose Magneto, surrounded by an electromagnetic force field, in which he was carrying himself, Pyro, and a small machine.

"Tick!" Magneto exclaimed, "Use your powers!"

"I... I can't. I'm too weak!" Tick exclaimed, terrified and dizzy. She'd used too much of her mutant powers during the fight and her conversation with Pietro, and she didn't have enough strength left to freeze the X-men for even a moment. Their escape, Tick knew, was in Magneto's hands.

"Blast it." Magneto muttered, as he turned back to look at the X-men. He was amazed that the X-men had had the power to overcome the Allies, and in a way, he was impressed as well. Quickly, warping the forces of magnetism around himself, Magneto caused several bolts to come loose from the blackbird, shooting through the air like bullets. Jean struggled to stop as many of them as she could, as Logan and Piotr tried to function as human shields for the others, with the exception of Bobby, who had his own kind of shielding. In the ensuing chaos, Magneto motioned for the other Allies to get up and return to the jet, except for Quicksilver, for whom he had a special command.

"I don't see Toad," Magneto said, "but he must be around here somewhere. Find him and retrieve him. Then we can leave."

However, as Quicksilver shifted into speed mode, Magneto saw that a fresh obstacle was blocking his path.

"You're not leaving with that machine, Magneto." Storm said as she stood in mid-air in front of him, winds whipping around her.

Magneto, however, saw Storm as no kind of threat. He was surrounded by a barrier of powerful force, and it could be quickly and easily charged with electricity. The wind-wielder couldn't penetrate his defenses.

Quickly, Magneto charged forward through the air, his force field smashing into Storm from the front, charging with electric power, as it made contact with her. She shuddered as she suffered a nasty electric shock, but she couldn't give up, and let Magneto get away with the machine that he wanted. They had to win somehow. In desperation, Storm reached towards the device with one hand...

There was a sharp snap, and the sound of circuits being fried, as an intense electric charge penetrated Magneto's barrier, and shorted out the machine he was carrying. He cursed mildly, Knocking Storm aside with his barrier again, but it was too late. The prototype machine was a wreck, and any chance to make use of a real, physical sample of the technology was gone.

Magneto knew that the X-men had held their own in that fight. It was a worrying situation, and one he'd have to deal with at some point, but for the time being, the device was useless to him, so he swung it around with his magnetic powers, striking Storm across the face with it, knocking both the machine and the girl to the ground. In seconds, Quicksilver was back, having located the unconscious Toad inside the blackbird, and brought him to the plane. It was time for them to leave. There was nothing more to be gained by Magneto and the Allies at the Pentagon.

* * *

As Logan watched Magneto taking off, he knew the X-men had stopped him from getting what he'd been after. It was their first real victory against him since the missile base fiasco, and it hadn't been an easy fight. However, he soon realized that they might not have won a true victory after all. The blackbird wasn't unsalvageable, but it couldn't take off in its condition, and it wouldn't be long before the military reinforcements arrived, which would put the X-men in a tense situation at best.

"Damn it." Logan muttered, "I guess he got the better of us after all."

"Huh?" Jean asked, regaining her sense of focus after all the confusion of the battle, "Who did?"

"The blackbird's got some nasty damages." Logan explained, "I don't think we'll be able to get it out of here before we're surrounded by troops."

Jean had to admit that she could see the problem, but there was, she reasoned, one possibility.

"Let me try something." she said as she started using her telekinetic powers again, feeling in and out of the various systems of the blackbird. Surprisingly, most of them were intact. It was mainly just that a few circuits had to be fitted back into place, the hull snapped back to normal, and the landing gear returned to its proper housings, and unbent. After just a few seconds, Jean smiled. Her powers swept over the blackbird, finding and fixing problems with the cacophonous noise of metal being twisted and forced into place. Logan could barely believe his eyes, but just moments after he'd described the problem to Jean, she seemed to have fixed it.

"It feels like it might break again soon, but it should hold up for a little while longer." Jean said, "We can get out of here now."

Logan shook his head in amazement, as the X-men climbed back into the Blackbird and started it up, taking off in a hurry, and heading for home.

* * *

Magneto had seemed a little tense and distracted as they'd flown their ship back to Asteroid M. Obviously, he was upset about having lost the machine, but Pietro was almost certain that Magneto would be making other plans pretty soon, and almost certain, in fact, of what his own plans would be in the future. Even so, Pietro had lost one father in recent years, and the idea of losing another one didn't sit well with him. He wanted to give Magneto the chance to explain himself.

When Pietro found Magneto sitting alone in the guidance chamber, he knew that something was up, and approached quickly, speaking with some cold efficiency in his voice.

"Father." Pietro began, but Magneto quickly held up one hand sternly, to silence him, and seemed to be concentrating hard.

Suddenly, metal plates and circuits wrenched themselves loose from the machines that surrounded him, forming into new shapes and sizes as they moved. Soon, a machine had taken shape in front of Magneto; a machine that looked very familiar to Pietro. At last, Magneto stood up with a smile, and said "Yes?"

"That's amazing." Pietro said, "Did you just create a replacement for the machine we lost?"

"Well, it's too early to celebrate. I'm not even certain it will work yet." Magneto replied, his smile disappearing, "Still, I did manage to get some idea of how the machine was built when I'd gotten hold of it earlier. I'd hoped to have a working prototype to replicate, but I'll need to make do with this one, and experiment with it if it doesn't work just right. Was there something else you wanted?"

"That was a close call today, father. When we split up, I thought we were done for. The X-men were so much more powerful this time... I don't think we're ready to fight them again. We need more backup, or at least some way to separate them. Either that, or we need to fight them all-out, all at once if we want to win."

Magneto seemed just a little saddened by that idea, but he shook it off quickly, as his smile returned.

"I'm glad you're taking this so seriously Quicksilver." Magneto said, "It may well come to that. If the X-men keep getting in our way, it could lead to all-out war between our two teams, as much as I dislike the idea."

Pietro just gave one nod to Magneto, as he left the guidance chamber. At that point, he knew as much about Magneto as he felt he needed to, in order to make his final decision, but Pietro still had one more person to talk to before he made any life-changing choices.

* * *

Scott Summers was seated at a table, in the middle of the library at the Xavier Institute, later in the evening, just after dinner, when Jean managed to track him down. Scott was trying to concentrate on a book he was reading, although Jean couldn't see the book's title from where she was. She quickly rushed over to the other side of the table, though she tried not to make too much noise as she sat down opposite him.

"Jean..." Scott said, noticing her suddenly, "Um... Listen. I'm sorry about..."

"No, it's alright." Jean said, "You just wanted to make sure I was okay, and you didn't try to force me to stay behind. Thanks for giving me the opportunity to search for my own strengths."

Scott was a little confused by Jean's words. She was describing things he'd never needed to think about. Jean was obviously concerning herself with matters much more complicated than Scott had needed to deal with in the mastery of his powers, and maybe even just as dangerous.

"You were searching for your own strengths?" Scott asked.

Jean seemed a little surprised when she realized that Scott hadn't even known that much, but she kept smiling and nodded quickly.

"Did you find them?" Scott asked, genuinely interested in how Jean was doing, even if he didn't completely understand her.

"Yes." Jean replied, "I did. I mean, like all mutants, I expect to discover new strengths in time, but I just came out of a meeting with Professor Xavier, and I think I can just about control my powers now."

"Oh..." Scott replied, not sure what else to say.

For several seconds, they both sat there, across the table from one another, silent and waiting for something, though neither was quite ready to make the first move. Scott wasn't sure what it was he was waiting for, but as the two sat there, their faces no more than six inches from one another, Jean knew what it was that she wanted to do most. She just wanted to lean right across the table, and give Scott one good peck on the lips. The way he'd cared so much about her safety, and the way he listened to her whenever she talked, and always seemed to care about how she was doing... They were wonderful feelings, made all the more wonderful by the fact that she felt those same emotions for him. There was no reason in the world why she shouldn't just kiss him, and yet...

And yet, there were plenty of excuses she could use. The setting wasn't right, the lights weren't dim enough, even that the very idea of a first kiss was too simple and common to describe her feelings for him. Fortunately, however, all of those problems could be solved if she just got a little creative. Leaning across the table, Jean Grey closed her eyes, and so did Scott Summers...

* * *

Scott wasn't sure what had happened. He'd been almost certain that he'd had his eyes closed, and yet, he was still seeing things around him. He tried opening his eyes again, but the visions didn't go away, and there before him was Jean, in the most beautiful dress he'd ever seen, as silent fireworks exploded against the night sky behind her. The two were standing on a hillside overlooking a small town, and as Scott pulled back, suddenly getting worried, Jean just chuckled in amusement.

"Jean..." Scott exclaimed, "Where are we?"

"Does it really matter?" Jean asked, "We're together now, and from here, we can go wherever we want... Be whoever we want. You can be whatever I need you to be, and I can be anything you want. Happy Valentine's Day."

Scott swallowed hard, partially in worry, but mainly in nervous anticipation. Jean had mentioned reading minds before, but she'd never demonstrated such fantastic power; the ability to control his thoughts almost completely; to block out the world anytime and anyplace, so that they could just be together, with no intrusions at all. Scott Summers had never been so attracted to Jean, and in spite of the power she suddenly held over him, he found himself caring for her more than ever.

"Will we ever go back to the library?" Scott asked, nervous but delighted.

"Shut up and kiss me." Jean replied, and as she advanced, to plant her lips on his, more fireworks went off against the sky, and the universe around Scott seemed to fold up like a box. He felt his heart pounding like a bongo drum as Jean's mental illusion faded at last, and he found himself slumping back out of that marvelous fantasy she'd created, and back onto the cold, hard library chair. By the time Scott could convince his pulse to do its job without running into overdrive, Jean had stood up and left.

* * *

End


	20. X Men 4: The Outside World

X-Men Neo

Issue 4

"The Outside World"

* * *

Illyana Rasputin sat in her room, trying her best to read about human cultural and social history. It was, she hoped, a possible way for her to reach a greater understanding of the species she'd been born from. She hadn't had much luck with that over the past several weeks. As far as Illyana could tell from what she'd read of history books and records of the lives of some of the greatest former leaders of Earth history, humans were a lot like daemons. Revolutions that lead to historical liberations were usually brought about by only a few key people, most of them motivated by selfishness, while the general public had wallowed in miserable apathy, and those who stood up to conquer and rule were hailed as some of the greatest heroes of human history. Julius Caesar, Alexander the Great, King Charlemagne, George Washington and so forth had all been warriors held in high regard for their prowess in both battle and tactics, and who were recognized as historic leaders long after their deaths by modern man. Even those like Napoleon Bonaparte and Attila the Hun who were recognized for their acts of barbarity by the history books were more frequently thought of in terms of their skill in the modern day.

During that current century, over half of the Earth's population lived in crushing, oppressive poverty, while a tiny percentage of the people enjoyed grotesquely opulent lifestyles, like gods, having earned their unfair position over their fellow man by manipulation alone. Illyana had to admit that she was impressed by the degree to which humans had allowed evil to infiltrate their lives. In fact, with every new bit of information that she gained about the human race, the evidence built more and more against the views that Piotr and his friends the X-men held about mankind. It seemed almost totally obvious that Belasco had been right about man, and that evil really was their true nature.

Illyana had had a lot of trouble recently, struggling to get used to the idea of dealing with her problems and the problems of her friends, without resorting to violence. It had been hard, because of all the time she'd spent in Limbo, always having to force her way around whenever she wanted to get any respect, or get anything done. Nothing ever got accomplished in Limbo without a lot of violence and bloodshed, and it had been hard to adjust to planet Earth, where nothing ever seemed to get accomplished, and yet, violence was utterly forbidden.

Both Illyana's feelings and her sense of reason told her that the path that the rest of the human race had chosen was a false one that would lead them to an evolutionary dead end, and yet despite all of the evidence that humans were foolish and weak, and needed to be taught several important lessons in progress and motivation, Illyana hadn't followed through on Belasco's plan to unleash Limbo's daemons on Earth. It had occurred to her very early on, to try letting a few daemons loose at a time, and see what happened. The thought had amused her a little, as she wondered what effect the sensible mentality of Limbo would have on Earth if introduced just a little at a time, but it had never gone beyond being an amusing notion. Perhaps Illyana still wanted to convince herself that she could choose to do right; that evil was not the only course that people could take, even thought it seemed to be the one most frequently chosen by men in power.

Of course, just because it was possible for her to choose peace over war didn't mean that Illyana believed in using peace to solve her problems, and it didn't mean that she enjoyed it. Frankly, she found the whole idea of trying to coexist peacefully with other humans to be annoying and unnecessarily complicated. It was an indulgence in what she considered foolishness and naiveté. At times, the temptation to leave Earth and return to Limbo for the rest of her life was great. There, at least, she knew where she stood, and the world's inhabitants were honest about it, and they didn't try to blame her for the results of their own silly mistakes.

One of the things that made life on Earth almost unbearable at times was that while she was struggling with her hatred of the way that Earth people did things, Piotr and his friends had asked Illyana to stay inside, away from genuine human beings. Obviously, they were afraid she'd wind up losing her temper and hurting some of the humans in the outside world, and there was a genuine risk of that, but Illyana knew that she couldn't learn what went on in the heads of her fellow man, unless she could actually go out and meet some of them for herself. She needed the chance to meet someone who viewed her as a person, and wouldn't feel threatened by her power or status as a daemon queen. In short, Illyana needed the chance to observe humans in their native habitat, and in all the time she'd stayed with them, the X-men had been almost constantly trying to prevent that.

As she thought those things over, Illyana realized that her mind hadn't absorbed any of the words she'd been reading recently, and in anger over allowing herself to become so distracted, she threw the book against the far wall. At last, she got up, angry at her brother, and angry with the X-men. She knew she couldn't allow it to go on any longer. Safety and security weren't effective tools, and cautiousness wasn't the best way to make use of Illyana's time. She needed the chance to take bigger risks and use her courage. She needed the chance for adventure, and to conquer the situation she'd been placed in, just like she had during her childhood.

In the end, a bright burst of power appeared all around Illyana as she made her decision. It hadn't been an easy decision to make, and she was almost certain that Nightcrawler would view it as betrayal, but she knew that for her own good, and for the good of both Earth and Limbo, she had to disobey her older brother, and leave the mansion. Whether the X-men thought she was "ready" or not, she had to start taking chances again.

Then, with that single flash of light, the mutant who'd come to be known as Magik disappeared from her bedroom.

* * *

Tick waited impatiently in her quarters on Asteroid M. She wasn't feeling angry or frustrated, although she was starting to get a little antsy as she wondered whether Quicksilver had forgotten the explanation that she'd promised to give him. It wasn't as if she was particularly eager to explain things to him, of course, but the tension of waiting for him to show up, not sure whether he would or not was hard for her. With his speed, she'd expected him to appear very quickly, but for whatever reason, it was taking him a while to arrive. Even though Tick didn't like talking about herself, it was a relief when Quicksilver finally appeared.

"Qu-quicksilver." Tick said swiftly, feigning a little surprise, although she hadn't screamed that time, at least. She wasn't frightened of Quicksilver anymore, because she knew that he was kind and reasonable. She wasn't even really startled by him the way she'd been in the past.

"When we talked at the Pentagon, you said you wanted to explain to me why you followed Magneto." Quicksilver said, getting right to the point, "I'm interested in understanding that, Tick. I'm worried about you. You're not like the other Allies. You don't want to fight. I can see that. Why are you going along with Magneto's plan?"

At last, the moment had come, and Tick knew she had to explain herself. Quicksilver was still looking for answers, and Tick didn't really want to keep him in the dark anymore.

"Alright." Tick said at last, "Sit down. This might take a while."

Hesitating for just a moment, Quicksilver took a seat nearby. He could tell that what Tick was about to tell him was very personal.

"When you first found out that you were a mutant..." Tick said, "When was it? Was it when you were born, or was it later?"

"I didn't find out until about a month ago." Quicksilver replied sadly, "I'm told it's different for some."

"I first found out about my powers when I was ten." Tick replied, looking miserable as she explained herself, "I was a spoiled child, and I didn't have any idea what kind of dangers were out in the world, or even just in my own home. I... I had a mother and a father, and... They never liked setting rules for me. They always caved, and I... and they..."

Tick paused for a second to reign in her emotions, before she tried to speak again.

"One evening, we were riding in our car down the highway, coming back from a meeting with some other family members, and I wanted them to go faster, so they were changing lanes, trying to get into the fast lane. I was so impatient, though. I wanted them to go faster. I... I willed it."

"The car did what I wanted." Tick said, "In between two lanes, the whole car sped up, and I felt my mutant energy draining away, as all the other cars slowed down to a crawl. My parents didn't know what was happening, or how fast we were going compared to everybody else. They had no idea. They tried to react, but... It was as if everybody had suddenly stopped short in front of them. The car was going too fast, and they couldn't stop in time. There... there was an accident... because of me."

"You didn't mean to." Quicksilver said sorrowfully, as Tick related her tale of tragedy, "I'm sure that's no comfort, however."

Tick just nodded, looking away as she said "There are things even I can't do with time, I guess. If I could, I'd have gone back and stopped myself, but I can't do that."

Quicksilver just nodded. It would, he decided, be a little disrespectful to interrupt at that point, even to ask her what had happened next.

"It wasn't long after the crash that Magneto found me." Tick continued sadly, "I think, at first, I went with him just because I was scared, and I wanted somebody to protect me, but after a while, he explained to me what he wanted to do. I didn't disagree with him, I guess. I mean, he sort of won me over a little when he told me that..."

Tick paused again, to try to compose her words a little better, and started over.

"A little after I'd first joined him, Magneto told me that he wanted to save mutants by changing the world, so that people were prepared to accept them. He said that mutants needed a different kind of upbringing and education than ordinary human beings, and that in the kind of world he wanted to create, we'd get that. He also said that if I'd been raised with care in the knowledge of my mutant powers by wise people who cared about mutants, or even about their fellow man, no one would have died because of me."

"What?" Quicksilver asked, horrified, "That's a terrible thing to say!"

"Yes..." Tick replied slowly, "He was right, though. People don't raise their kids wisely most of the time, and I was a victim of that. My parents wouldn't have known how to raise me if I'd been a human being, and they certainly weren't ready for a mutant child. If... If people respected mutants more... They might have had an easier time with that. They might have had the chance to teach me self-control, instead of always giving me what I thought I wanted. That's why I get scared so easily. I always had them to protect me."

"Even so, it's a brutal way to talk to someone about their closest relatives dying." Quicksilver objected, "If he'd said anything like that about my father, I never would have joined him."

"I guess I was just ready to hear it by then." Tick replied, "He knew I didn't want to fight, because I just don't have the courage to look someone in the eyes and attack them, but we'd found something we wanted to work together towards. That was why I started working with Magneto."

"Have you ever wanted to fight someone?" Pietro asked after a pause of only a few seconds, "Have you ever wanted to really oppose somebody and stop what they were doing by force?"

"I... I told you before," Tick replied nervously, "I wouldn't have the courage to..."

"That isn't what I asked you." Quicksilver replied as gently as he could, while still getting his message across, "Did you ever want to? I know you can't, but did you ever desire it? Did you ever want to overthrow someone else's system, or take the quick route to what you wanted by force?"

Tick looked away, and for several seconds, Pietro was afraid that she wouldn't answer his question. At last, however, she spoke.

"N-no. Never."

"Then you have no reason to keep working with Magneto." Quicksilver replied, "If we use our powers, we can survive among the human race. We don't need Magneto's help for that, and if you don't believe in the methods he's using to bring about mutant rights, just as I don't, then there isn't any reason for either of us to stay here."

"Do..." Tick began, terror shaking her voice as she spoke, "Do you think he'll just let us leave?"

"What do you mean?" Quicksilver asked, suddenly becoming very worried himself.

"I... I don't know if he told you this..." Tick muttered just loud enough for Pietro to hear, "But when he moved me up here, he told me that as payment for the accommodations, I was to use my powers to help him. He said that only the Allies of Magneto could live on this asteroid, and that he was just as intolerant of deadbeats as anyone. At first, my help only amounted to assisting with construction chores, but more and more recently, he's been taking me on missions, where I've had to use my powers against other mutants... If we told him we wanted to leave the Allies, do you think he'd just take us back to Earth, just like that, or would he be too upset that we'd deserted him?"

That thought hadn't occurred to Pietro for several reasons, but when Tick described her doubts, a plan started forming in Pietro's mind. Suddenly, he'd started to realize that he couldn't trust Magneto to be civil and polite about their desertion, and when he realized that, he knew that he and Tick needed to plan a means of escape as quickly as possible.

"We have to find some way to get out of here." Quicksilver said, "Maybe you're right, and maybe Magneto would be upset if we left. In that case, we'll need to wait for an opportunity. We're bound to have another mission sooner or later that takes us back to Earth. When that happens, we can make our move."

Tick shivered a little at the very thought, when he described it, however.

"You... You make it sound so dangerous..." Tick said sadly as she looked away.

"It might be dangerous," Pietro admitted, "and I can't force you to accept that danger with me. You have to face that danger by your own free will, unless you'd really rather stay here, living in fear of both the X-men and Magneto."

As he said that, however, Tick burst into tears and jumped to her feet, burying her face in Quicksilver's shoulder as she sobbed. He had plenty of time to get out of the way, but he didn't take that time. As much as she'd avoided her problems in the past, Tick had a right to cry, because she was about to make the most difficult decision she'd ever made.

* * *

One by one, the senators from all fifty states took their seats in the chairs assigned to them around the podium in the room's center. None of them were sure what to expect. They only knew that one of New York's senators had something he wanted to address with the rest of the senate; an issue that he considered to be "of the utmost importance." Most of them suspected that it had something to do with the attack on the Pentagon not long before, but as for what, precisely, Senator Kelly would be suggesting, that was harder to predict. His political views had never been completely reliable. In fact, he was something of a rogue candidate, and he often disagreed with even his own political party. The views that he was about to express that day, however, were some of the most controversial that he'd ever spoken.

As Senator Kelly got up in front of his peers, there was sadness in his voice. He'd been hoping that it would never be necessary to address the issue that had suddenly become such a major problem for both them and the United States, and as he took up the microphone, he knew he wasn't going to have any difficulty remembering what he had to say, because he'd been agonizing over it all through the previous evening.

"Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen of the Senate." Senator Kelly said into the microphone, "That is to say, I'm wishing for you all to have a good afternoon. However, I don't think there's anything particularly good about this afternoon, because right now, there's a threat that could destroy America, and it's sitting right on our doorstep."

"Now, you've all heard about the attack on the Pentagon, and that the attackers succeeded in damaging a very valuable prototype. What some of you may not be aware of is the reason why they managed to get so far, and accomplish so much."

"The group that attacked the Pentagon was composed of at least six members." the Senator continued, "With your permission, I'd like to read to you some excerpts from the reports on the subject by a general of the armed forces, who was there during the attack."

"'I've never seen anything like it before.'" the Senator read, "'One of them charged right through a rain of bullets as if they were nothing, while another one passed by us in the hall like a blur. A moment later, we came under attack by someone who seemed to be throwing fire at us with his hands, as well as another man, who I recognized as Magneto. I'm sure he was the most dangerous one of their whole group. They burst through our best defenses, and into the lower floors with almost no effort at all. In fact, it was only the interference of a team of masked vigilantes that, I feel, prevented them from escaping with a functional prototype.'"

"Ladies and gentlemen of the Senate..." Senator Kelly said sadly as he looked up at them again from the report he'd had in front of him, "These terrorists managed to get so far into one of our best-guarded installations because they were mutants, using special powers bestowed upon them by a process of natural evolution, apparently. Now, whether you believe in evolution or not, the fact is that lots of people are turning up with unusual powers, who seem to have either had them from birth, or developed them naturally later in life. In the scientific community, such people are called mutants, but they've been more of a theoretical concept, than a functional factor in society, until recently. Ladies and gentlemen, we have to face the facts. Mutants exist. They are real, and they are dangerous. I will now open the floor to any further questions about this."

Almost immediately, Texas Senator Ralston got to his feet, getting everyone's attention.

"Senator Kelly." Ralston said, "It's all well and good for you to say that mutants are dangerous. I'm sure they are. So are we. Anyone with power is dangerous. My question is; what are you suggesting that we do about this?"

Senator Kelly breathed deeply through his nose before replying. There was nothing else to do but make his statement and hope that he'd be forgiven if his choice turned out to be the wrong one.

"Right now, the Pentagon is trying to develop a more effective weapons and containment program, intended to function against all known mutant powers. Heavier yield weapons are impossible to deploy against individual mutants, and we're looking for a way to make that work using nonferrous materials, in case Magneto becomes a problem again. The real issue is that there are some mutants who are said to be able to control other people's very minds. Can you imagine how dangerous a person like that would be? Essentially, we need to redesign a soldier itself; make a non-human soldier, or at least develop a cheaper means of disrupting psychic control. As you might imagine, it's all very expensive research and production. I won't beat around the bush about that. The real reason I came to you today was to try to get funding for it. We need to write up a bill that would allot federal funding specifically targeted at the development and production of weapons capable of neutralizing the advantage of mutant powers."

However, as Senator Kelly turned to look back at the rest of the Senate, it was obvious that he hadn't changed the minds of most of the other Senators. Some looked a little scared, but mostly, they seemed to feel that new weapons weren't the answer. A moment later, Senator Ralston spoke up again, and vocally confirmed many of Kelly's fears.

"If the Pentagon doesn't get this funding, will they still be able to complete the weapons program you're suggesting?"

"Probably." Senator Kelly replied sadly, "but it might take years, or even decades. By that point, it might be too late for all of us. If we get enough funding, we may be able to finish production in just a couple of months."

Silence reigned in the Senate for several seconds, as the politicians all thought about what was being suggested. On the one hand, there was a threat to America, and to the American people, and yet, on the other hand, many weren't convinced that the answer lay in more and better weapons.

"I don't like the feel of this at all." Ralston said at last, drawing all eyes to him, "In the past, there have been lots of times when people have faced major threats to sensitive aspects of their lives and governments, and in the end, they always used weapons to subdue those threats, no matter how valid the complaints of the threatening faction were. I don't think we need any more weapons than we have, Senator Kelly. We just need a clear wit, and good reason. With those, I'm confident that we can find a solution to whatever these mutants are so upset about, in a way that can satisfy everyone."

"What if the mutants won't listen to reason?" Senator Kelly asked, trying in vain to sway the other senators back to his side of the argument, "What if we need to use force?"

"Well, you live in New York, senator." Ralston replied with an amused smile, "Just call for Miss Marvel. If you have to, you can even call in the entire Avengers. I've heard they're pretty good with that sort of thing."

Senator Kelly was furious. Where once, his position had been tentative, it was suddenly in serious jeopardy. If he'd tried to tell the other members of the Senate that he didn't think they could trust the Avengers either, no one would have taken him seriously, and yet, how else could he respond? What other response was there? If the Avengers were trustworthy, then no weapons were really all that useful anymore.

"Even the Avengers can't be everywhere at once." Senator Kelly replied, but it was too late, and he'd hesitated for too long. He hadn't been prepared for a debate, because he'd barely been sure about his course of action himself, and that was when Senator Kelly knew that only a few of the other Senators would agree with what he'd suggested.

* * *

It was hard to keep from panicking, considering what had just happened. The moment that Professor Xavier had heard that Illyana had left the building, he'd used his powers to scan the entire Institute for her, or anyone who might recently have seen her, but it was no use. She'd definitely left, and she was quite likely to hurt anyone she met if Jubilation's reports on her behavioral progress had been accurate. There was also, of course, no doubt that she was one of the largest physical threats on planet Earth, and if she ever decided to turn against them, she could easily go from being a minor annoyance around the institute, to an enormous danger to the entire planet.

The moment he'd realized the horrible potential danger they were all in, Professor Xavier knew he had to summon the X-men. It was a rotten kind of predicament, and it was bound to upset Piotr that they couldn't afford to trust Illyana, but it was the only choice Xavier had; he couldn't take risks with the safety of the whole planet.

"X-men." Xavier said silently into their thoughts all at once, "Please report to my office at once. Something terrible has happened."

* * *

Illyana Rasputin had reappeared in an alleyway just outside of one of New York's largest shopping malls. She had about five thousand dollars with her, which she'd obtained from a jewelery store, in exchange for a rather large, pure diamond that she'd retrieved from Limbo in moments. Naturally, Earth currency would have meant nothing in Limbo, but it seemed that the riches of Limbo meant a great deal to Earth people.

With the money in one of her pockets, Illyana stepped through the front doors of the shopping mall, and she must have been quite an unusual sight. She was still dressed in her royal uniform; a bright white affair, with a long cape and a ruby pendant to hold it in place. She neither wore her helmet, nor carried her axe, but she'd kept her enchanted bracelet on just in case. In Limbo, she'd learned that one could never be too careful.

Once inside the mall, Illyana had spent quite a while just pacing around, looking at the various items available for purchase. After just over an hour, however, she started to get hungry. While she'd been dwelling in the lower levels of Limbo, it would have been standard practice to simply kill a daemon, and cook their carcass over a fire, then eat what she could of them, and burn the rest. Her time in Belasco's palace had taught her to accept, and even enjoy the service of a chef, and since journeying to Earth, she found that nearly all food was prepared by chefs in either restaurants, or packaging in stores for later purchase. It was possible to acquire food without money, of course, but it upset fewer people, Illyana had been told, when she paid for it instead.

Illyana had no particular preferences on what she ate. Food was food. If she'd tried to be specialized in eating, she never would have survived in Limbo. When she arrived at the food court, she could see the names of several types of food listed in lights along the edges of the place. That was how she knew what they were selling. Burger, pizza, Chinese food, taco... All of it was in bright lights, as if people couldn't be bothered to notice their most basic necessity otherwise. Illyana was disappointed by the sight, but she knew that she needed to eat something. In moments, she'd stepped over to the counter under the "taco" sign.

As Illyana walked up to the taco counter, however, she became aware that everyone in the food court was staring at her. She didn't mind the attention, though. As queen of Limbo, she'd gotten used to that sort of reaction. Limbo's daemons almost always paid closest attention to the greatest threat, and no human was really a serious threat in comparison to her. She suspected, incorrectly, that they saw the bright colors she wore as what they were; a boast about her strength, implying that she no longer needed to worry about stealth or camouflage, and that they would be intimidated by the rich way in which she was dressed as well. In reality, it was more that her clothes were so strange, and she was an extremely abnormal sight in her long, flowing cape, ruby pendant, and long boots and gloves. They saw that she was odd in comparison to them, and it was that oddness; not intimidation of any kind, that had drawn their attention so powerfully.

"C-can I help you?" the man at the counter asked, despicably showing his weakness and nervousness in front of her. Illyana had to fight down the urge to attack him just based on that alone. In Limbo, one took advantage of every weakness.

"I desire food of some sort." Illyana said, "Since you work in this establishment, you must have some idea of what food is best today. What do you recommend?"

"Me?" the man asked, amazed by the stilted, stern, and yet flattering way in which he was being addressed, "Uh... I always go for the hot stuff myself. The chili tacos, for example."

Illyana had eaten hot food before in every sense of the word, and she did enjoy it. Grinning a little unpleasantly, she asked "What sort of drinks would you recommend?"

"Well, uh..." the man said, "Most people get coke, but I tend to go for lemonade. It's thick enough on the tongue, but it's not as bad for you."

"Very well." Illyana said, "That sounds sufficient. I will have what you've recommended. How long will it be before the food is ready?"

That was the kind of question the boy at the counter was used to, so he replied with a simple "It should be done in just a few seconds. We just have to heat it up."

"Satisfactory." Illyana noted. It was as far towards "very good" as she ever got. In Limbo, Illyana had rarely complimented anyone, including the chef.

In moments, the food had arrived, and it did look good. Illyana quickly paid the man at the counter and took her seat at a table near one edge of the food court, so that watching her back would be easier, sniffed the taco and the drink a few times, tasted each on the tip of her finger, and then took a large bite out of the taco.

It was probably the hottest item on the menu at the taco stand. It was a powerful kind of chili, prepared in a special sauce, that was intended to bring the most intense taste out of the food, even if it meant torturing the taste buds of the one eating it. It made Illyana's whole mouth feel like it was on fire, and her tongue felt very much as though it were being clawed apart repeatedly by a legion of tiny beasts. In fact, she realized quickly, it wasn't that much different from the food she'd gotten accustomed to eating in Limbo. A little weaker perhaps, but not by much. It wasn't disgustingly pleasant, at least, and it made her feel at home. Even the taste of the lemonade a moment later didn't drive that familiar, comforting sensation away completely.

She was only about halfway through her meal, however, when Illyana heard the voice of another human being, and realized that someone was actually trying to initiate a conversation with her. After debating silently with herself for a few seconds, she decided to play along.

"Excuse me..."

"Yes?" Illyana asked, looking up into the face of the young man whose voice she'd just heard. He had thick, curly, brown hair, and very enviable black eyes, and his features were long, and looked rather mature for someone his age, which was to say, not much older than her.

"I'm... uh... I'm not very good at talking to girls..." the boy muttered a little, trying his best to be honest, and seeming vulnerable in the process. Illyana wasn't impressed.

"A common enough ailment in these parts." Illyana replied, "Still, you may as well speak up. Speak strongly, because in the strength of your voice, I will hear your true will."

"It's... uh... It's not like that." the boy said, not sure how else to react to such a force-based and imposing mentality, in a girl her age, "I... um... What's your name?"

"I have several." Illyana replied, "As a girl, my name is Illyana Rasputin, although if you look to me as a warrior or a queen, you would do better to call me Magik."

"Il... Illyana?" the boy asked, captivated by her, "My name is Marcel Donhome."

"I see..." Illyana said, rapidly becoming bored with the boy.

"May... um... May I sit here?" Marcel asked. It was an odd question. Illyana didn't remember the last time someone had asked to sit with her. At the institute, people gave her plenty of space, and in Limbo, she'd been so feared, that no one had dared. It was a new and different kind of experience for her.

"You may." Illyana replied, "I should warn you, though. You have little strength in your voice, and I'm rapidly growing bored. Because you seem to lack strength of will, you've yet to impress me."

"I'm not trying to impress you." Marcel replied, a little surprised by her reaction, "I'm just curious about you is all. I mean... I mean... You're so different. I've never seen anybody like you before."

"No." Illyana replied, "You wouldn't have."

"I just... I want to know more about you, you know?" Marcel asked at last, losing hope that he was ever going to learn anything about the strange girl in the white cape, "I mean, you piqued my interest, and I'm not scared of you... I guess I was just a little nervous because I don't talk to girls much."

"You're not intimidated?" Illyana asked, confused and surprised.

"No." the boy said quickly, "No more than usual. I guess I'm just surprised, and a little confused. You come into the food court in the middle of the day, dressed like you're going to a costume party, and yet, you're obviously so proud of yourself, as if you're not afraid of what anybody's going to say. I mean, you even act like you might be a princess or something; like you'd be just as happy giving orders..."

"A princess?" Illyana asked, amused, "Nothing of the sort. I am queen over the realm of Limbo."

"That... uh... that sounds like a big job." Marcel replied, clearly a little worried for Illyana's sanity.

"Not as much as you might think." she replied quickly, "With a little fear, leadership is a simple matter. The human race would benefit from an acceptance of that fact."

Marcel felt lost again. Illyana was describing things to him that he didn't understand; things he'd never heard of, and found extremely confusing. It was far beyond his level of education to be able to debate political policies with her, so he just nodded instead.

"So what do you like to do?" Marcel asked, growing more and more interested in Illyana with every word she said to him.

Illyana thought about his question for a moment, but didn't quite answer it, partly because she wasn't entirely sure how to. At last she said with some reluctance, "A good question."

"At times, it seems like there is very little that I truly enjoy." Illyana explained, as Marcel started to settle down a little, "In Limbo, there is some enjoyment to be found in conquest, and the vanquishing of one's enemies. Even so, to say that I like to do that might be... Might be terrifying to my fellow man. People have more cause to hate me, the better they get to know me, because I am not a human girl. I'm the queen of all daemons. It's a great and terrible title."

"Of course," Illyana continued, "you're an average type of human. You won't believe any of this, I'm sure. To you, the world is such a small place, and there's nothing to challenge the dominance of human beings over nature. You won't believe that there are races capable of subduing man unless you see it for yourself."

However, to Illyana's surprise, Marcel had quickly started shaking his head.

"No." he said, though his eyes were open wide in amazement and fascination, "I believe you. I believe that there are demons, and I believe... uh..."

Illyana hadn't expected that kind of reply. She'd been cynical about humans, and how far they could take their faith, but when she looked into Marcel's eyes, trying to read his true emotions just a moment later, she realized with amazement that he hadn't completely been lying. He didn't really believe that she was a daemon queen, but he didn't want to believe that man was the ultimate life form either. He was filled with hope that the universe might be a bigger place than he'd been told in the past, and it was just a little encouraging to see that.

"Curious." Illyana remarked, and after a few seconds more of debating with herself, she made a choice that would change her life forever.

"I suppose if you really feel that way, I can permit you to serve as my guide for the next few hours. There's still much of this building that I'm unfamiliar with. In fact, I know very little about planet Earth in general. I would welcome the assistance of someone familiar with the customs of this world in helping me to understand what goes on here and why."

The suggestion brought a broad smile to Marcel's face. Nothing, he thought, would have made him happier.

* * *

The moment that he heard about what his sister had done, Piotr was in his metal form, slamming his left fist against his right palm with a furious clang. Logan cast him a short, suspicious glance when he did that. It was something he'd want to talk to Piotr about later.

"What was she thinking?" Piotr asked angrily, as he turned away.

"Illyana's thoughts and feelings are still fueled by the troubles she endured in Limbo." Xavier replied, "She fled the mansion because she was afraid that we were trying to hide something from her."

"Honestly, I've been expecting something like this for a while. Illyana is full of suspicion and pride at the moment. Her confidence in her own physical abilities have given her the illusion that she can handle anything that comes her way. Not too long ago, she tried to pass a test of civility and failed. I think that entire incident frustrated her, and may have been the reason she's done this. No one really understands Illyana enough to support her through this kind of trouble, and she might have a hard time grasping the concept of emotional support anyway."

"But we let her stay at the institute!" Piotr exclaimed angrily, "We gave her room and board!"

"I'm afraid that Illyana's time in Limbo has taught her to always question the motives of those who do you favors." Xavier replied sadly, "She's been expecting us to betray her, or try to use her for some time now. The fact that we continue to treat her fairly, and with respect may have only made her feel more uncomfortable. I think she sees our conduct as a ploy, and wants to know what's behind it. That may be the real reason she left; to get unfiltered information on us, and on humanity."

"I hope that information is all that she gets." Kurt said worriedly, "We should be there to stop her if she tries to hurt someone."

"You mean when she tries to hurt somebody." Jubes replied, "It's bound to happen sooner or later. She's never gotten through a training session without bashing some poor dummy's head open."

Hardly anything else needed to be said. Bobby didn't feel right about the whole thing somehow, but he knew that there was a genuine danger of Illyana flying off the handle and killing some poor fool. That was something the X-men couldn't allow.

* * *

Vincent Edison frowned as he looked across his desk at the man on the other side, sitting in a chair opposite his. The man looked proud and calm, as befitted a person of his political and social standing. He obviously had no idea who he was dealing with. He must have known that Edison was founder and majority shareholder of a large real estate company, as well as several repair and appliance companies, but there were things that he didn't know about Edison; things that might have struck fear into the heart of even a man like Senator Kelly.

"Now, would you care to explain what you meant in this letter?" Edison asked, handing the letter to the senator. It had been unfolded and read, and there was a look of interest in Edison's eyes.

"It's all explained in the letter." the senator replied.

"I'd rather hear it from your lips." Edison clarified, "If you're too embarrassed to actually say it, I could say it for you, but..."

"I'm not embarrassed." Senator Kelly replied indignantly, "The military is working on a new kind of weapon with the intention of counteracting the advantages that mutants, and other super-powered threats have. One of the experts they have working for them is a man named Doctor Bolivar Trask, and he's close to a breakthrough. He just needs funding for it."

"Curious." Edison noted, "You approached me with this for a reason, I'm sure. There must be some way that my company can benefit from it, though. If not, why come to me at all?"

"I'm authorized to offer you full access to all data, blueprints, and specifications of any technology that's developed from Doctor Trask's work if you provide funding for it." the senator replied, "I'll bet that with proper application, you could make a tidy profit off of that."

"Interesting." Edison said without the slightest tone of interest in his voice, "What kind of technology is Doctor Trask working on, precisely?"

"Since some mutants have the power to control people's thoughts, Doctor Trask is attempting to design a true artificial intelligence."

"Really?" Edison asked, suddenly amazed by the idea, "You mean a machine that can think for itself?"

"Mostly." the senator replied quickly, glad that Edison had suddenly become so interested, "It would be programmed to complete certain tasks, but within that programming, it would be able to think, reason, and learn; almost like a human being."

"Now that IS interesting." Edison replied with a smile that, to the senator, didn't quite look wholesome or pleasant, "I think I just might wind up funding your little military project, senator. How much do you need?"

* * *

It hadn't taken Marcel very long to stop smiling as he and Illyana had walked through the mall. Thanks to her wild outfit, morose expression, and tendency to talk about crazy, impossible things that could never happen, he'd seen her as a strange, new kind of person; someone he wanted to get to know better. Well, as it turned out, she certainly was all of that; she just wasn't very much fun to be around, entirely by her own choice.

As they'd journeyed through the mall together, Illyana hardly ever seemed to cast Marcel so much as a glance, or try to smile even in the slightest. Either she was absolutely miserable, or else, she was just being lazy about her own social conduct; maybe both. Marcel had a hard time dealing with people who refused to smile or laugh, no matter what you said or did. Those kinds of people brought everyone else down. He'd once thought that all he wanted was to know just one person who wasn't ordinary and boring, but Illyana wasn't either of those things, and she was still depressing to be around.

There was only one time that day, when Illyana showed any sign of having a sense of humor, and it was at the least appropriate moment. Marcel had been talking about the war in the middle east, and all of a sudden, Illyana's mouth formed into a wicked grin, then she started to chuckle a little. Marcel was almost worried that her whole face would fall to pieces from the strain of supporting such a laugh.

"What?" Marcel asked, "What's so funny?"

"People are such idiots." Illyana replied, "They call it war, as if there's anything else in the world. The places that are considered 'peaceful' are really just war zones that one side has given up fighting in."

"Well, yeah." Marcel replied after just a moment, causing Illyana's expression to return to normal, "But if one side gives up, the other side wins, right?"

"No. War is never truly won." Illyana replied condescendingly, "There are always those who fight against the regime that the victorious side imposes upon those who live in that area, and there are always those who will fight just to fight, because they crave power, and for no other reason. In the end, nothing changes. War is constant, and it has no resolution. There are victories and conquests to be had in war, of course, but they serve no higher purpose, and they can never stop war completely. War is the purest of evils, and like all pure evil, it can never truly be destroyed."

"Well, sure." Marcel responded, not certain what to say to that exactly, "But it's not just evil, you know. You can't stop people from doing good things either. It's like the light and the darkness."

Illyana, however, had thought the matter through already, and she knew that her viewpoint on that was going to differ from Marcel's sharply.

"Light and darkness, hmm?" Illyana asked, grinning again, "Look out at the night sky some time. If you strain to see, and if you're far enough away from the city, and its street lights, you might just make out the tiny points of light up there in the sky; the stars. In time, though, all of those stars will expand, then contract, becoming tiny dwarf stars. In the end, the life cycles of the stars will simply cease, and each and every one will either blink out, or will collapse into a black hole. At that time, space will be a very dark place, and there won't be even a tiny speck of light. You see, the darkness can exist by itself. It doesn't need the light's approval. The light, however, cannot exist on its own. There has never been a light that didn't cast a shadow, and the closer the light grows, the larger the shadow. In the end, it's evil that truly has the advantage. Every time someone uses the 'light and darkness' analogy on me, I make it a point to bring that up."

"I don't think I'd be able to survive if I thought about things that way," Marcel said just then, and Illyana was a little shocked by his words, "I've always thought that no matter how rotten, oppressive or cruel a person was, there was always a little bit of goodness deep down inside of them. I guess it's a little easier to see things that way."

"What's so easy about it?" Illyana asked, confused, "Doesn't that just obstruct the truth? People use that mentality to try to justify themselves in doing things that can't be justified, instead of just accepting their cruelty and wickedness. In a world full of so much self-denial, how can any true warriors be born?"

For several seconds, Marcel just stood and stared at Illyana, not sure whether to be astonished by her perspective, or feel sorry for her.

"Why do you think like that?" Marcel asked in deep worry, "I mean, why are you always talking about war and death like that's all there is to life?"

"Power and those who possess it are the only things about life that really make any difference." Illyana replied calmly, "That's understood very well in the place from which I hail; the place I grew up."

Marcel had started to see the truth about Illyana at that point, however. She had no understanding of simple things like love, compassion, and joy. It seemed that she just couldn't bring herself to take those things seriously, and that was when Marcel reached out and grabbed Illyana's hand in his own. She seemed to react with shock and amazement to the fact that he'd touched her, and yet, his touch hadn't been an attack of any sort. It was something Illyana wasn't used to.

"No." Marcel said, as he held her hand, "It's not like that. There's more to life than just having power, and forcing things to go your way. There's kindness, love, friendship... I guess it sounds a little corny talking about it like that, but if people couldn't even care about each other, life would be Hell."

"But that's not how things are." Illyana insisted, "Survival isn't helped by trying to deny the obvious. There are some who constrain themselves to a code of conduct that leads them to do right, but it's always because they want to think highly of themselves. They don't really care about..."

At that point, Marcel grabbed Illyana with his other arm, and in moments, he was hugging her tightly.

Illyana was uncomfortable with being hugged, and that made her upset. In moments, she'd begun casting a low-level spell around herself, just as she started to notice the smell of brimstone behind her. Obviously, Nightcrawler had found her, and would probably follow through on his threat, and try to kill her. It was a shame, but it seemed that the people of Earth were really as foolish as Illyana had always been taught.

However, just as Illyana was thinking those thoughts, she noticed something odd about Marcel's behavior. When Illyana had cast her spell, it had caused powerful waves of heat to radiate from her body, which had provoked intense surprise and discomfort in Marcel. As long as Illyana had already spent describing who she was, and what she was capable of, Marcel had never expected her to display such frightening powers, and obviously, the heat was quickly growing too oppressive for him, as droplets of sweat formed all over his body. That, however, wasn't the surprise. All of that had been intentional.

In that moment of pain and shock, Marcel wasn't letting go of Illyana. He wasn't defending himself, but he also wasn't releasing her.

"Let go of me, fool!" Illyana exclaimed, "If you don't, you'll be burnt to cinders!"

"What do you care?" Marcel asked, "Isn't it all about conquest, and battle, and claiming victory? Isn't that why you're doing this?"

"Dammit." Illyana muttered as Marcel clung to her, his clothes turning brown, and his hands and arms in intense pain. In moments, he knew, he'd be burned horribly, and that would be the end of it, but he couldn't let go, because in spite of his shock and amazement over what had happened, Illyana had proven to him that he had more reason than ever for clinging to her. When he'd first wanted to get to know her, it had been because she was so strange and interesting, and when he'd first embraced her, it had been because he was afraid that she had no understanding of love, and he wanted her to understand. Since the heat had started to form around her, all of those reasons had grown even stronger. He found her stranger and more interesting than ever, he was more afraid than ever that she knew nothing about love, and he wanted her to understand more than ever before. That was why, in spite of the danger, Marcel held on to Illyana, and when the heat around her started to die down, and he could feel his burns healing, and his body temperature decreasing, he was just as relieved for Illyana's sake, as for his own.

"I... um... I guess you really do care about me." Marcel said, as Illyana glared at him, "That must mean it's possible to care about somebody."

"I don't understand how this could be." Illyana replied angrily, "It doesn't make any sense."

"It makes sense to me." Marcel said with a smile, "I cared about you, and somewhere, deep down inside, I think you cared about me too. That's just how it is."

"Idiot." Illyana muttered, but Marcel wasn't going to let her go that easily; not after she'd just shown him the power that she had; the power of mercy and caring that she still possessed, whether she wanted to admit it or not.

"So... you can make heat?" Marcel asked, trying to start up the conversation again, as he finally released her.

"Among other things." Illyana replied, still glaring at him in anger.

"Why are you looking at me like that?" Marcel asked, becoming concerned again, as Illyana stared at him in something that closely resembled contempt.

"It's because you made me feel uncomfortable when you embraced me." Illyana replied, still looking very angry the whole time.

"Well, caring about people can make you feel that way." Marcel said, "I guess if all you think about is how powerful you are, that saves you from having to really think about how people feel. Dealing with people's feelings can be scary, because they're pretty unpredictable."

"I'm not afraid." Illyana insisted, though in reality, she couldn't be sure whether she was or not. She feared no daemon, man, mutant, machine, weapon, or force of arms, and her philosophy of life, strength, and survival was virtually ironclad. None of those things had been altered in the slightest by the time she'd spent away from Limbo with her brother and the X-men, and yet, almost the very moment that she'd stepped off the grounds of the Xavier Institute, things had started changing for her, and whole new emotional experiences were unfolding before her. In Illyana's mind, it was full justification for her choice to leave the institute grounds unsupervised. It wasn't comfortable or satisfying to be out among ordinary human beings, but at least it was something new; something she hadn't learned about before. It was unpleasant, and yet, in its own way, it was just what she'd wanted.

* * *

The other X-men were all a little surprised when they received a message from Kurt, warning them all to stay away from Magik. Not one of them, including her own brother, had thought for even a moment that Illyana might be ready for human contact, and that news was some of the best they'd heard in weeks. It meant that Illyana was well on her way to being an ordinary girl again, and they could stop worrying about her blowing up the world, and move on to other concerns. The unfortunate thing, however, was that for the next few weeks, they'd have plenty to be concerned about.

* * *

That night, as Senator Kelly phoned Doctor Trask to let him know he'd be getting additional research funding, it was Trask who had the bigger news to give.

"Doctor." Kelly said into the phone with a smile, "I've got big news."

"I heard." Trask replied grimly into the telephone, "It's horrible."

"Really?" Kelly asked, both surprised that Trask had heard about the funding, and confused by his reaction, "But I thought the research funding was important to you. Isn't that what you wanted?"

"What?" Trask asked back into the phone, "You got the funding? Did the senate...? But that doesn't matter. It's already too late."

"Trask, what are you talking about?" Kelly inquired, still confused, but suddenly starting to grow fearful as well, "Why is it too late?"

"You didn't hear?" Trask said in obvious shock, "Where are you, senator?"

"I'm at home." the senator answered, "Why?"

"Maybe you should turn on your television." Trask replied, "Turn to channel 10. They're replaying the message right now."

The senator was still incredibly confused, but he was eager to know what Trask was referring to, so he quickly rushed into the next room, and turned on the television. Almost as soon as he did, he saw an image of one of the most dangerous people in the world. It was the mutant who'd personally orchestrated the whole attack on the pentagon not that long ago; Magneto.

Kelly could see that he'd already missed whatever short introduction Magneto had given, so he switched to another news channel, and waited for them to report on the mutant's message. In moments, he saw Linda; the anchorwoman of that network, saying "We'll be replaying it one more time for those who missed it; Magneto's address to the people of the world."

Almost at once, the image of Magneto appeared, looking sad and concerned as he spoke into the camera. The resolution of the broadcast was pretty bad, but Kelly could tell that it was Magneto, and he could tell what the master of magnetism was saying.

"Good evening." Magneto said into the camera, "My name is Magneto, and I have an urgent message for everyone. There are people among you who aren't like everyone else; people who may look different from you, or who may look perfectly normal. People like myself, who look mostly normal. I speak, of course, of mutants. You may wonder what a mutant is. There's much debate over that. Some believe that mutants are the next step in humanity's evolution; a genetic leap forward along the evolutionary path. Others prefer to think that mutants are a supernatural thing, sent to Earth by God as a chastisement. Whatever you choose to believe about mutants, there are things about us that shouldn't be ignored. We have power which, in most ways, exceeds that of ordinary human beings; physical, mental, emotional... Mutant abilities can take many forms. Psychic powers, control over natural forces, simple enhanced abilities, or special powers and reactions to certain kinds of circumstances... Mutants can do all sorts of incredible things, and with proper guidance, they could become a very useful part of society."

"Unfortunately," Magneto continued, "Mutants aren't being given that proper guidance. In fact, they're frequently treated with fear and contempt, or even greeted with violence, merely because they can do things that ordinary humans can't. There's no good reason why people can't put thought and care into raising their children, whether they're mutants or not, and yet, it isn't happening. For that reason, I implore any parents watching this, to please turn off the television and spend the rest of the night with your children. If you're a young person, or you have no children, chances are that someday you might either be or encounter a mutant. I ask you not to react in fear when that day comes, but to be accepting of the differences within your mutant brothers and sisters. Mutant genes are something that a person is born with; people don't choose whether or not to be mutants, so they should be treated fairly, with a caring heart."

"If, however, you're a federal official, a member of a law enforcement agency, or working with a military organization, or any government in any way, this next message is for you. I would prefer if ordinary citizens didn't need to hear this, because it may come across as harsh."

"As governments, the nations of Earth have been colossal failures up to this point in every way that I can imagine." Magneto continued, his anger starting to show at last, "Whole nations are founded on the oppression of the poor and innocent, despots steal the charity that others would give to their starving citizens, in order to increase the size of their military. The young of planet Earth are butchered by the millions in order to permit their parents a comfortable lifestyle, and open persecution is not only tolerated, but endorsed by law in many nations that like to consider themselves civilized; even throughout Europe and the Americas. I have my eye most carefully on England, France, and the United States, because each seems to be struggling against those dangerous issues, and each seems to be losing that fight."

"I have appealed, more than once, to the sensibilities of the world powers, to change their policies, come to their senses, and welcome mutants with open arms, but I haven't been heeded, which is unfortunate. You see, mutants don't have a nation, a government, or a military to defend them. At least, they didn't until now."

Suddenly, the camera changed, to show a large ball of fire, falling from the sky, and colliding hard with the ground in the middle of a desert. The desert sands melted under its fiery touch, an accomplishment that the relentless heat of the scorching sun had never managed, and as the image of that small meteorite persisted on the camera, burning away in the middle of a large indentation in the ground, Magneto's voice could be heard again.

"These images are from a test that I ran earlier today, using a machine to draw meteorites closer to Earth. With proper calculation, and careful aim, they can be made to fall anywhere on Earth. This was the smallest of the meteorites I have at my disposal, and I tried to drop it in the least dangerous place I could think of. If I'd been trying to make war on any nation, I would have already succeeded."

With those words, the image of the desert faded from the screen, and Magneto reappeared, looking as stern as ever.

"I don't like to threaten people." Magneto said, "I'd prefer to think that the problems of mutants could be solved peacefully. Please, prove me right. I implore the world's governments to start changing their policies this very week. Don't let this situation get any further out of hand. Give mutants the chance to live their lives fairly. Give them the chance for peace. I know that many nations won't listen to me when I say this, even after what I've just shown you, but even if only one or two are willing to listen to reason, I'll dismantle my machine. Mutants are a fresh chance for all of you to prove that you're mature enough to face difficult problems with treaties and diplomacy, rather than with bombs. For the moment, I'll leave it at that. In one week, you'll hear from me again. What I say and do at that time will be largely determined by how you react. I implore you one last time; make the right choice."

Just then, the image of Magneto blinked back off, and Linda was on television again, saying "That was the message from the mutant terrorist Magneto, which was sent along all television broadcast signals just an hour ago, interrupting all other broadcasts at the time. We still await a response to Magneto's demands by federal officials, but at this point, it seems unlikely that..."

Kelly turned off the television at that point, though. He wasn't interested in Linda's speculation. He worked in government, and he knew what kind of people Magneto was trying to appeal to. There was no way they were going to react peacefully. They were politicians.

"Trask?" Kelly asked into the phone, "Are you still there?"

"Senator?" Trask replied nervously, "Did you see the broadcast?"

"Don't worry, Trask." Kelly said, "It's not too late. There's a chance this thing may work itself out, and even if it doesn't, that'll just mean that we need your new weapons more than ever."

"A-alright senator." Trask responded over the phone, not sure how else to react, "Things sure look pretty bad, though. I'd feel better if the sentinel program was in its production stages right now."

* * *

End


	21. X Men 5: Self Improvement

X-Men Neo

Issue 5

"Self-Improvement"

* * *

Almost as soon as Magneto sent out his message to the world, several things became quite apparent. For one thing, in spite of his gentle words, Magneto was a threat, and he'd decided to threaten the people of the world with his powers, and his apparent machine, with which he meant to use meteors as weapons against the established governments of the Earth. Another thing that quickly became apparent was that neither Magneto, nor the United States government were flexible enough to be talked out of the paths they'd chosen. The US government was determined to continue on in its own way, in spite of the threats leveled against it by the powerful mutant, and Magneto was determined to make them eat that decision. As much as Magneto had preached peace and tolerance such a short time ago, peace was the furthest thing from his mind. In fact, he was probably already aware that the solution to that conflict could no longer be a peaceful one. It was too late for that. The X-men were well aware that somehow, Magneto would have to be brought down if any semblance of peace were to be restored.

The problem, however, was in figuring out how to accomplish that. Reed Richards was still months away from any practical breakthroughs in his new hyperspace research, and none of the Avengers could breathe in outer space without some kind of machine or containment device made at least partially from metal. As for the military, from the looks of things, they'd be likely to follow the standard method; just chuck a bunch of bombs at the problem and hope it works out. Against Magneto, though, that tactic couldn't possibly succeed.

The worst part of it all was that there didn't seem to be any way of penetrating Magneto's defenses. Magneto had the power to control and shape metallic substances of any kind, whether refined or otherwise, and that power made him virtually invulnerable to almost all weapons that had been designed since the stone age. The only thing he wasn't invulnerable to were the mutant powers of others, and those wouldn't do any good unless the X-men could reach him. Unfortunately, reaching Magneto meant traveling into space, and traveling into space meant using a spacecraft. It was an obstacle that the X-men hadn't been able to solve when they'd thought about it the first time, and no new solutions presented themselves when they thought about it again, in spite of all they'd experienced, and all the ways in which they'd improved over time.

At first, the X-men had tried to play Magneto's game defensively, reacting when he left his floating citadel to make his move. However, that technique had been based on the idea that Magneto needed to travel to Earth in order to do any harm. Since his announcement of his plans to bombard the Earth from orbit if the world governments didn't change their policies, the very idea of defensive action against Magneto had taken on an entirely new meaning. Suddenly, the X-men had new and more urgent objectives; to chart and intercept any meteors that Magneto sent to Earth, and to do their best to stop them.

The news networks seemed to believe that Miss Marvel would be able to stop the meteors, but even Miss Marvel couldn't be everywhere at once. If Thor had still been around, he might have been able to resolve the situation, but obviously, he hadn't been seen in over a year. For a short time, Scott wondered if the X-men should be trying to locate the rogue mutant known as Anna Marie Darkholme, who still had most, if not all of Thor's powers, but he dismissed the idea just as quickly. Anna was too unpredictable and dangerous. Trying to use Illyana Rasputin's abilities to stop Magneto was equally impossible, at least for the moment. Illyana had just gotten used to the idea of living peacefully with other human beings. Yanking her back into a combat or near-combat situation would have been like giving champagne to a recovering alcoholic.

Over the course of the week that Magneto had given the people of Earth to start changing their ways, the X-men debated several possible means of defending themselves, eventually deciding upon a difficult and complicated plan, that would make full use of the powers of Cyclops, Nightcrawler, and Professor X. Xavier would use his telepathy to detect when a meteor was about to fall, then scan the mind of anyone who was close enough to that spot, and project that image into the mind of Kurt. Kurt, in turn, would grab Cyclops and teleport him, if necessary, for miles, to the location he was seeing in his mind. It was a good idea, in theory. The problem was that although Kurt did succeed in teleporting both himself and Scott for over five miles in a single attempt, the feat left his body almost completely drained. He just wasn't strong enough to teleport across districts, much less states or continents. If nothing else, that gave Kurt something new to improve on, while they waited for the week to pass, but he'd only managed to push his maximum distance to ten miles by the time the next signal came from Magneto, being broadcast all around the world at once.

"This is Magneto again. I'm sorry to say that I still haven't been taken seriously. If anything, fear and hatred of mutants has grown over the last week, and your governments have done nothing to attempt to prevent or undermine that. I've tried my hardest to be civil with them, but the governments of the world will need to know that there is someone to hold them accountable for their crimes. I wish there were another way, but it seems that there isn't. A pity."

Magneto frowned deeply, as he continued, "Right now, a meteor has begun its descent towards Earth. If I've calculated its weight, shape, mass, and trajectory correctly, it will enter the Earth's atmosphere in two hours and forty-one minutes. Only a few minutes after that, it will come down hard on the floor of the United States senate. This warning should give everyone in and around that building the chance to retreat to a safe location. Next time, however, there will be no warning. I mean to see that all mutants are liberated from oppression, persecution, and all the other madnesses that you humans impose on minorities. Good day."

Then, Magneto's message had ended, and that was when the X-men knew that they needed to make their move.

* * *

The X-men had rushed to the basement as quickly as they could, attempting to conserve their power as much as possible for the upcoming emergency. Marvel Girl, Cyclops, Logan, and Nightcrawler were the primary members of the team for the mission, and Jubilee, Bobby, Piotr, and Storm were coming along as well, in case things got too nasty. Henry Mccoy, who'd taken to referring to himself as "Big Blue" over the radio, was joining them, to pilot the blackbird.

The plan was a complex one, with multiple phases, in case things went badly. They intended to use the blackbird to get within teleportation range of the senate building, then have Kurt teleport Scott to that location. At that point, it was Scott's job to use his optic blasts to demolish the meteorite, or else, just cause it to lose enough of its momentum, that Marvel Girl and Storm could handle the rest, using their powers over physical motion and the Earth's atmosphere to drop the meteorite into the ocean somewhere.

Of course, there had been some doubt among the X-men about whether their training had been enough; whether they could actually solve the problem, or if it was too big of a problem for them, but even those doubts had mostly been self-doubts, or doubts about the opposition they faced. On the whole, the X-men hadn't been expecting simple bad luck to be a factor.

Just in time, the blackbird got to within ten miles of the senate building, and Kurt grabbed Scott by the wrist, causing both of them to disappear in a puff of smoke. In seconds, Kurt had reappeared at the steps of the senate building, completely exhausted, with Cyclops next to him, looking up, for any sign of the meteorite. It seemed, however, that most people in that area of the nation's capital had heard the broadcast, because when the X-men arrived, there was a crowd of panicking people, all running back and forth, trying to get in or out of the building. Many of them were well-dressed, although some were just ordinary-looking people with no clear connection to the senate at all. When Cyclops and Nightcrawler appeared among them, they didn't cause that much additional panic, but mostly because there was already plenty to go around. With all the screaming, rushing, and overall fear all around them, it would have been extremely hard to concentrate, no matter what else happened, and just as he started to see a small glint of light descending towards them from above through his visor, Scott was struck from behind by a man in a suit, who was fleeing the building.

In that moment when he was struck, Scott Summers fell forward onto the ground, and his visor slid off.

On instinct, Scott closed his eyes, reaching for where his visor had gone, only to find that another person, in an obvious hurry, had accidentally kicked it out of their way. Everyone was afraid. Everyone was panicking. No one apologized for what they'd done, and the meteorite was falling towards them from miles above; faster and faster.

Just like that, Scott had suddenly become helpless. Without his visor, he couldn't see, because if he opened his eyes, he'd tear apart whatever he looked at. It was the one moment in which Scott's fear began to overwhelm him, and he too started to panic. He didn't know what to do. Without his visor, he was blind and helpless.

However, even if he was helpless, he wasn't alone. Jean Grey had been watching him the whole time with her telepathy, and though she'd originally used it somewhat childishly, she knew that it was a power she needed, if the X-men were going to save those people. She had to connect herself to Scott's mind again, and she needed Kurt's help to do that.

"Kurt!" Jean exclaimed telepathically, drawing the attention of the exhausted young mutant, "I need your eyes."

In seconds, Kurt had stumbled to a standing position, and grabbed Scott's head from behind, looking in the direction of the falling meteorite.

"Listen, Scott." Jean said, conveying her message to him with the speed of thought, "This is important. I'm going to use Kurt's vision. For a moment, you'll be able to see through his eyes, while he holds your head in the same direction as his. When you move your head, he'll move his, and you'll be able to see with your eyes closed, but I can't keep this up for long. You need to shoot the meteorite almost immediately, alright?"

Scott replied quickly with a silent, "Yes. Thank you, Jean."

In moments, Scott Summers saw the vision that Jean was projecting into his mind; the vision of what Kurt was seeing with his own eyes. In that moment, Scott took aim and fired.

The crimson beams of concentrated force that emerged from Scott's eyes at that point were some of the most powerful he'd ever created. They tore through the air with a crackling noise, as loud as a rocket engine, and a bright, shining light that got the attention of everyone in the vicinity. In only a second, that beam hit the falling rock from space, and hardly anyone could see what was happening, as the fiery boulder hit the beam of destructive energy. The sound and flash of light that came from the collision of those two forces were so intense, that everyone was simply stunned for several minutes, even once they'd realized what had happened. Cyclops' optic blast had torn the meteorite to shreds, stopping its forward momentum almost completely, and reducing it to a simple cloud of dust.

As Scott closed his eyes again, and Kurt helped him retrieve his visor, no one said anything. What had just happened had drawn the attention of every single person in the area; everyone who'd so recently been panicking uncontrollably. All shouts and screams had ceased. All moving feet for a mile had stopped in their tracks. As Cyclops put on his visor, everyone started staring at him in amazement, and at last, a cheer started to rise up, among the crowd of people. They'd never seen anyone who could do that before, and they'd never expected that anyone would. No one knew the names of the two new arrivals in the strange costumes, but they were already the most popular people in Washington DC.

"Hey, boys!" one man from nearby said, "That was incredible! Who are you anyway?"

"Um..." Scott muttered after just a moment, as news crews and other adoring citizens of the nation's capital rushed up to them, eager to find out more, "I'm Cyclops, and this is Nightcrawler. Uh... The person who did this was Magneto, and... um... He's a mutant. We're mutants too, and..."

Scott paused for a moment, closing his eyes, to think about what he wanted to say next. He was sick of stuttering. He wanted to give a great speech, just like Captain America, or Miss Marvel had in the past; something that would make people remember the X-men in a positive light.

"Nightcrawler and I are part of a team called the X-men. We're a group of mutants who use our powers to try to keep the peace. I'm aware that people have organizations designed to do that already, but there are some things... like falling meteors, for example, that people just aren't ready to deal with. They don't have a natural means of defending themselves from those kinds of threats, so they need somebody to help protect them from that kind of thing. I think that's something worth working for; to help people, I mean."

"Magneto said he was fighting for mutant rights." one of the reporters announced, "If the X-men are all mutants, you must be on the same side."

"Well, everyone deserves to have rights," Cyclops said, "and there are some rights that everyone's entitled to by law, but unfortunately, the law doesn't always protect people, because a lot of people in the world, and in the government don't support the laws America was founded on. I don't know why that is. Maybe they don't see what it is about those laws that keeps them safe, or maybe they're just more concerned with getting what they want. I know I've met plenty of mutants, and plenty of other people too, who were more concerned with getting what they wanted than with doing the right thing. It's much too easy to say that it's alright to celebrate and relax while your whole world crumbles around you, but the truth is that it's not about what people want; it's about what people deserve. People shouldn't be getting what they want, because what they want isn't always good. I mean, nobody gives their kids everything they want because they don't want to spoil the kid, but nobody worries about spoiling adults. I think they should worry about that, because a lot of adults are being spoiled right here in America. I don't agree with many of the laws that America honors right now, and I don't agree with a lot of its policies. They've caused lots of people plenty of suffering, and done lots of damage to the American dream."

"In that case, why did you save the senate?" the reporter asked.

"Just because I can't agree with a lot of things the senate does, doesn't mean I'm willing to kill based on that." Scott replied, "If I stood by and let this happen, I'd have been just as guilty... But, I guess there's another reason. You see, I believe that mutants, and everyone else should have fair rights, but Magneto doesn't think there's any way to resolve those problems peacefully. The X-men do. This isn't going to be an easy time for mutants, or for the rest of humanity, and there may be times when the X-men will need to fight, but our real goal is to prevent a fight. We want to prevent this new generation from having to suffer through another senseless war. Because of that, I have to ask both Magneto and the US Government to please reconsider your positions, and try to come to some kind of agreement. There's no good reason why mutants should be thought of only as terrorists or dictators. We can live in peace together, and so can everyone else."

The questions continued, and Cyclops tried to answer them as best he could, only shying away from questions about his real, human name, and that of his partner. However, after a few minutes had passed, Kurt had started to get some of his strength back, and the blackbird appeared overhead. Strong winds started to pick up around both Cyclops and Nightcrawler, forcing everyone else back, as the blackbird approached, causing the two X-men to rise into the air, and enter the jet they'd arrived in. In only moments, the jet had closed up with the two of them inside, and the aircraft took off, traveling northeast; back towards New York City, as the crowd of people in Washington cheered for the X-men.

* * *

The mission had been a success, of course. It had been an almost total success in some ways. Cyclops' speech had gone over extremely well with the media, and Magneto's first attack had been repelled. Scott should have felt absolutely fantastic about how the whole affair had gone, and yet...

Only half of Scott Summers felt like happily celebrating the X-men's first major victory over the public distrust of mutants, which was the real victory they'd achieved that day. Magneto could still strike with a new meteorite at any place without warning after that, so it certainly hadn't been a victory over him. However, the once-growing public dislike of mutants, caused by Magneto's previous broadcasts had begun to diminish, and there was no one to thank for it but Cyclops and the X-men. It sounded like a darn good reason to celebrate. Still, the other half of Scott Summers was the half that didn't feel like celebrating at all. It was true that he'd saved the day, made a nice speech, and all that, but it had been awfully close. If not for Jean and Kurt, he probably would have died, and the reason was simply that his greatest strength, as a mutant, was also his greatest weakness. Without his eyes, he couldn't tell where he was aiming, and without his visor or glasses, his eyes were only useful as weapons. Whenever Scott Summers lost his glasses or visor, he was more or less useless, because he just couldn't aim his optic blasts properly.

Scott didn't like his mutant powers at all. It made it extremely difficult for him to see anything properly, and it was limiting during workouts, when he had to work so hard to keep track of his glasses. When he'd been younger, he would have given anything, to have just been normal. It was only once Professor Xavier had helped him learn how to control his mutant abilities, that Scott had begun to see the advantages to being a mutant; the intense force with which he could react to difficult situations, and blunt the effects of natural disasters, or just warn people away, using a carefully-implemented optic blast, and the boundless physical and emotional energy that his constantly-active mutant power provided him with. Those were all advantages that Scott had enjoyed, and benefited from, and yet, when it came down to it, his powers weren't as versatile or functional as the powers of most of the other mutants he knew. He couldn't shape the world around him like Bobby, Ororo, or Jean, he couldn't teleport like Kurt, or survive gunshot wounds like Logan or Piotr, and he certainly couldn't shape the thoughts of others, like Professor Xavier. Of all the mutants that Scott knew, only Professor Mccoy had powers with less total potential than his, and he didn't have to deal with being essentially blind, without specially-crafted and expensive eye wear.

Of course, Mccoy had problems of his own. His thick, blue fur, large size, and ferocious-looking appearance were enough to make most people at least a little shy around him the first time they met him, despite the brilliant and gentle brain and heart underneath his alien-looking physiology. By comparison, Xavier's baldness, or Logan's feral side seemed like smaller inconveniences compared to the problems that Scott and Mccoy had. They were mutants whose powers were also a curse; a restriction that they couldn't just ignore, or avoid; something that limited their ability to function as human beings, because of their mutant traits.

Naturally, Scott could have talked to Kurt about the same kind of thing, but Kurt seemed to have used religion to largely come to grips with his abnormal appearance. Scott had talked to Kurt about personal matters before, and he wasn't sure that Kurt's brand of encouragement would have been terribly helpful. As the X-men got back to the Xavier Institute, parking the blackbird in its underground containment hangar, Scott knew that he had to talk to someone about his limitations; the obstacles that he faced as a mutant, and he knew that there was only one person who might really be able to relate to him.

* * *

Within about fifteen minutes, everyone was out of costume, and going back to their normal routine. Part of Mccoy's normal routine recently had been to check his computer files every once in a while, to see if there had been any changes in the meteorites still orbiting Earth. Mccoy had been having a very hard time keeping up with his class schedule recently, what with setting things up in the danger room, and keeping track of Magneto. He was feeling overworked, and he hadn't been getting enough sleep. Even so, he tried to be as friendly as possible to the students; especially those who needed his help.

When Scott Summers opened the door to Professor Mccoy's office, he was a little nervous, but more worried about himself than anything else. He knew he had to bring the subject up quickly, though, before he lost his nerve.

"Professor Mccoy?" Scott asked, drawing the large, blue-furred mutant's attention.

"Please..." Mccoy replied, "Call me Hank."

"Um..." Scott said, not quite ready to call his science professor by his first name yet, "Actually, I wanted to talk to you about what happened today."

"My highest compliments on your feat, Scott." Mccoy just said with a smile, "In fact, there's a chance I might not have been able to do it better myse-"

"No." Scott interrupted him, "Don't congratulate me, Profess... um... Hank. I screwed up. I lost my visor down there, and without Jean and Kurt, I never could have hit the meteor. It's like... I have this one big weakness, and I don't have any way to protect myself, when somebody takes advantage of it. I mean, I can't turn off my power without my glasses. I'm... I'm useless if I can't see."

Hank looked a little concerned when Scott said that. Scott Summers had finally noticed his own biggest weakness, and thanks to that, he was losing track of all the things that made him strong; he was forgetting about the things he'd done right, by remembering what he'd done wrong. It was something that Hank himself had needed to come to grips with when he'd been Scott's age; the urge to see himself outlined in his faults alone. It was, unfortunately, a hard lesson, that couldn't just be taught.

"Well, Scott..." Mccoy said sadly, "I wish I could say that someone else in the world had your specific problem, although I think the problem you're really having is that you're only looking at your weaknesses, rather than your strengths. I think, in time, you'll learn to adopt a more positive outlook about yourself, like I did."

That, Scott knew, was something of an understatement. Hank's tendency to jokingly boast about how great he was had formed one of the most humorous aspects of his speech patterns over the time that Scott had known him. Even so, Scott wasn't exactly in the mood for humor. He was genuinely worried about his weaknesses, and, Hank realized, there wasn't much that could be done about that. Scott needed to find some answers for himself.

However, what Scott had really been looking for was sympathy, and it seemed that Hank hadn't realized that. As Scott left Professor Mccoy's office just a moment later, he couldn't help but feel let down. The thought occurred to him to go to Jean, or Professor Xavier, but neither of them really understood what he was going through. That, however, was when he was hit on the back of the head from behind, and closed his eyes sharply, as his glasses fell off.

Quickly, Scott fell to the ground, and scrambled around, to try to find his glasses with his eyes closed. That was when he heard the voice of the one person he'd least wanted to reveal his problem to, because he was just about the last person who'd ever offer sympathy to anyone.

"It ain't fun, is it kid?" Logan asked from apparently behind Scott, "Havin' an Achilles heel like that? Not bein' able to rely on yourself when it comes down to the wire?"

"Logan, quit it!" Scott exclaimed, "Did you just knock off my glasses? Is that your idea of a joke?"

"Nah, kid." Logan replied, "There ain't nuthin' funny about it. You got some big powers and all, but they ain't that big. You'll never be able to keep up, unless you can make up for weaknesses like that."

It was just about the last thing that Scott had wanted to hear. He'd been hoping for somebody to tell him it was alright, and that he couldn't help what his powers were, but Logan wasn't going to do that, because he knew it wasn't true.

Quickly, Logan stepped forward, and kicked Scott's glasses back towards him along the floor. As soon as Scott's hand came down on his glasses, he was on his feet, fitting them back onto his face, and looking around furiously through them. Logan, however, was just looking annoyed.

"Don't take this the wrong way, kid." Logan said when he saw Scott's expression of absolute fury, "I appreciate what you did tonight. Saving all them people, and telling them what mutants are all about were mighty nice things to do, and I'm sure it did a lot of good, but if you're really all that worried about your weaknesses, you'll want to do something about them."

Scott, however, was too angry by that point to think about being constructive. He hadn't been looking for a solution to his weaknesses to begin with, and he certainly wasn't willing to put up with Logan in exchange.

"I wasn't talking to you about this." Scott said icily.

"Yeah, I know." Logan replied, though he still didn't seem the least bit sorry about what he'd just done, "Look, kid. Here's how it stands. You've got your problems. Okay. I understand that. I got my problems too. Thing is, I could waste my time feeling sorry for myself, or I could do something about it. Now, I know you think you've put aside what you think, and how you feel for long enough, but you've come into some good luck recently, and now you're in kind of a tough spot. One way or another, you're the voice of the X-men now, and the others are gonna be looking up to you. As long as you're in that spotlight, you need to be able to stop acting like a child. Now, it ain't wrong to look for sympathy when you've gone through something harsh, and it ain't wrong to get that sympathy, but if you don't do everything you can for the people you care about, to try to do the right thing... Well, that's wrong. Seems to me like trying to overcome your weaknesses is a better use of your time than whining."

Scott Summers was still openly furious with Logan, but in a way, he was just as furious with himself. As his anger continued to grow, he knew that even if Logan agreed to stop bothering him and leave him alone, he'd still have to wind up working out, to let off the extra steam.

"Logan." Scott said, as furious with Logan as he'd ever been, "Now let me tell you how it stands. You tell me where, when, and how, and nothing else. I do want to solve this problem, but I don't want your attitude. That's something you need to learn. I'm not surprised you had to mooch off the Professor all this time. With no more big wars to fight in, it can't have been easy for you to make it in the world."

"Nah." Logan replied, "But I ain't insecure about that, because I know I'm still working to overcome my weaknesses. Still, you did something pretty impressive today, so fine. We'll play it your way for now. Danger room. Sixty seconds. Training. This ain't gonna be easy, though."

Then Logan headed downstairs, and after taking only a few moments to think it over, Scott Summers followed him.

* * *

"There's no good reason why mutants should be thought of only as terrorists or dictators. We can live in peace together, and so can everyone else."

Pietro watched Cyclops carefully, as he said those words after the first meteor bombardment. He'd seen Cyclops out in battle twice before, and knocked him unconscious both times, and yet, in Scott's determined speech, so eager for peace, and the chance for a good relationship between humans and mutants; in the actions he'd taken to stop a lot of people from dying, Pietro saw a reflection of his own dislike of death and killing. In the actions of the X-men, he saw his own deep disdain for murderers, and his own desire to see killers brought to justice. If Magneto's meteorite had collided with the senate building, how many people would have been killed, and how many would have had families and loved ones, who would have felt just like Pietro? Pietro didn't think that Magneto was being naive about that aspect of the things he did. Magneto had certainly considered the hurt and sorrow that his actions would wind up causing, but in his eyes, it was all worth it if he accomplished his objective. Magneto had justified killing on a large scale, as long as it led to a society that accepted mutants, and Pietro wasn't ready to do that. The remnants of how he'd felt when Django Maximoff had died were still too fresh in his mind, and the idea of making anyone else feel that way was something that no goal could justify in Pietro's eyes. It was yet another piece of evidence that he'd made the right choice. Magneto's goals were tempting ones, and his methods did seem sure to succeed. On top of all that, he really was Pietro's father, and family was worth quite a bit. Still, Pietro knew he couldn't live his life like Magneto wanted him to. His choice had been made. He just needed an opportunity, and he and Tick could make their escape.

* * *

Ororo Munroe was emotionally-drained when she'd gotten back from the mission, and she felt both relieved and frustrated in different ways. It was for the purpose of mending at least a little bit of that frustration, that she'd retreated to her room, to water her plants, and try to figure out what had happened during their last skirmish with Magneto. She'd seen a spark of light seem to pass between her hand, and the machine he'd been trying to steal. That had surprised her quite a bit. It was almost as if her body had begun determining attraction points for electricity, and then, she'd just shot electricity right out of her hand, letting it rush to its target, but she hadn't had much time to consider how she'd done that until recently, and the idea scared her just a little. Changing the wind was one thing, but making lightning was a lot different, and it had a lot of potential to be harmful. When Ororo had first discovered the power to change the wind, she'd needed to struggle just to keep her powers from demolishing her surroundings, and she had a strong feeling that lightning powers would be even more dangerous, which meant that she'd need to work even harder to control them, or else, they might get in the way when she was trying to live her life. She certainly didn't want to shock her own friends during ordinary conversations.

Once she was sure that she'd tended to her plants as well as she could for the evening, Ororo looked at the lamp next to her bed. It was the only thing she really had in her whole room that was made of metal, and because of that, she decided, it would probably be easier to target with lightning.

Ororo closed her eyes for a moment, and tried to think of what had gone through her head when she'd shorted out the machine; the urge to focus, and stop Magneto from getting what he wanted, as the electricity surrounding his own body had gone through hers. The stimuli were a little different in her own room, but Ororo knew she that needed to try to perform the feat again. Concentrating as hard as she could on that single point on the lamp, Ororo raised her hand towards it, and willed the lightning to emerge. Nothing happened, though. Maybe she'd only been able to control the lightning while it had already been around her, or maybe there was some kind of other condition that needed to be satisfied before she could use that particular ability, but either way, Ororo found that she couldn't just make lightning appear from nothing, and once again, she was both relieved and frustrated by the thought.

Of course, that relief began to rapidly diminish as the door to Ororo's room burst open. If she'd been able to summon lightning just then, Ororo would have used it against the person on the other side. Bobby Drake definitely should have knocked first.

"Um..." Bobby said, looking back and forth through the room for a moment, in some surprise and worry, "Did I interrupt anything?"

"Nothing too important." Ororo replied, fighting back the urge to pummel the boy mercilessly, "What's wrong?"

"Well, it's just that I wanted your help with something. I mean... Just for a second."

For a moment, Bobby turned and looked out the door, down either side of the hallway, making sure that no one was approaching, then closed the door behind himself, and looked at Ororo in worry.

"This is... this is gonna sound kind of weird. I'll bet nobody's ever asked you to do this before, but... I want you to cover me in ice."

* * *

Three floors down, in the danger room, Logan watched Scott fumble around without his glasses, walking around him repeatedly on the metal floor, challenging Scott, again and again, to determine his location without seeing him. At that moment, however, his ears gave a short twitch, and he muttered to himself, "Oh, thank God."

"Sorry?" Scott asked.

"Nothing." Logan replied, "Just caught the sound of someone growing up."

* * *

"What?" Ororo asked, confused and disturbed by the request.

"Look, I can make ice in all different shapes and sizes," Bobby tried to explain, "but I'm trying to become the best there is, and all the other X-men keep getting better, and discovering new things about themselves. I just... I need to figure out what I'm really capable of, and I think the first step is to go to my native element."

Ororo's confusion was clear and obvious, as she looked away from Bobby in worry and amazement. The idea of Bobby Drake sticking himself in an iceberg somewhere, to figure out more about his powers was worrying by itself, but what really seemed off, was that Ororo was pretty sure that Bobby could do that far more efficiently than she could.

"Can't you just do that yourself?" Ororo asked, confused.

"No." Bobby said, without taking much time to think his reply over, "I can only make so much ice, and then it all starts melting. I need to go someplace where it's naturally icy, and below freezing. That way, I can spend more of my energy exploring my powers, and less on keeping the environment cold. I can tell there's something about my ice powers I haven't discovered yet, and if I want to do that, I need to be in someplace that's... Well, someplace kind of like the arctic."

"Bobby," Ororo replied in frustration and disappointment, "I can't do that. If I tried to take you to the arctic, I'd freeze to death."

"The antarctic, then." Bobby suggested unhelpfully.

"Bobby, I'm not taking you across half the world." Ororo insisted, at which point, Bobby Drake made another suggestion, that never would have occurred to Ororo.

"Why not just make it really cold right here? I mean, you can do that, right?"

"No. I don't think so." Ororo replied, "I can only control the wind, not the temperature."

Bobby looked surprised for a moment, as he looked back and forth through her room, at the various plants she'd gathered, but it was obvious that he lacked the textbook intelligence needed to figure out precisely what it was about her reply that had seemed odd. Something about Ororo's last statement, though, hadn't sounded quite right.

"I never watch the weather, so I don't know much about wind, I guess." Bobby said, "You must know everything about it, though, right?"

Ororo's mouth opened, then closed, then opened again. She didn't know what to say. She hardly ever watched television, and didn't really know all that much about meteorology. Of course, Bobby wasn't too book smart himself, but he'd just pointed out to Ororo that she'd been ignoring pivotal information that pertained to the functions of her own powers. Gusts of wind and whirlwinds were all well and good, but even so, the X-men had lost as many battles recently as they'd won. What if there were whole sections of her power... whole new powers, that she could use, and she just hadn't realized it, because she hadn't been studying the right things?

"I... I'll talk to you about that later." Ororo said, as she looked back at Bobby for a moment, "I need a few hours alone, though. I have to do something."

Then, in a moment more, Ororo had nudged Bobby back out of her room. After that, rather that try to wait for him to leave, she immediately went to the window, opened it, and floated outside through it, then gradually descended to the lower floors, where she opened one of the side doors of the building, which led directly into the library. Since it was late in the evening, only a couple of other students were around, and both were occupied with their own homework at the time, so nobody noticed when Ororo started scanning the titles, eventually picking out three books about weather patterns and meteorology, and carrying them off with her, as she left the building the way she'd come in, then ascended back to her room.

* * *

Ororo spent most of the rest of that evening reading in her room, with her doors and windows locked, and the blinds drawn. It was probably fortunate that she did that, because she wanted to get comfortable while she was reading, and part of that involved getting completely undressed, and floating in the precise center of her room, so that she wasn't touching anything but the book. It was the way she'd read as a child. When her people had thought of her as a goddess, it had been easy to get away with that sort of thing, and it was something which, until just over a year and a half before, she'd become accustomed to. Ororo sat in mid-air like that for hours, reading and reading, touching nothing but the book the whole time, and as she read, she started to realize how foolish she'd been, not to read up on the weather sooner, because she was learning things that she'd never even considered before; things about the weather that had escaped her notice completely. It soon became obvious to her, as she read, that nearly everything about the weather was either caused or moved by air motions; whole elements of weather and meteorological changes could be set it motion by someone able to change the direction of air flows. Of course, it was a little hard to pick out what kind of information was helpful from an ordinary textbook, so Ororo decided to do what she did in class; take notes.

Quickly, Ororo descended back towards ground level, and floated to the bag where she kept her school supplies. After digging through it for about a minute and a half, she managed to find a spare notebook and pen, and started scribbling down category and experiment lists on the paper. The lists were divided into a few categories; lightning, cold, heat, rain, snow, hail, and fog. Beneath each of those categories was listed some notes about how wind caused those types of weather conditions in nature, and each was probably going to take hours of training to replicate, but Ororo had felt some envy for Kurt when she'd seen him increasing the length of his teleportations, bit by bit. In truth, she'd wanted the chance to improve on her own powers, and finally, she was going to get that chance.

Quickly getting dressed, Ororo opened her window, and floated outside, into the upper atmosphere, where she could see dense storm clouds gathering.

* * *

Magneto frowned, as he watched the low-definition news broadcast coming in from the surface of planet Earth. The broadcasts showed the miracle performed by Cyclops and the X-men; the way they'd prevented him from following through on his threat. Magneto knew that he had to make a new assault, and he had to make it soon. Already, people were starting to feel hopeful that the X-men could save them from accountability, and if they didn't start taking Magneto seriously, it would severely undermine everything that he was trying to accomplish. Still, Magneto knew where the X-men's home base was, and he knew how they'd been able to react so quickly to the meteor strike. The next one, however, would be impossible for them to interfere with, particularly given the fact that there wouldn't be any warning. Quickly, the master of magnetism entered new figures into the computers of Asteroid M, targeting the next meteorite at the United Kingdom's House of Commons.

For hours, Magneto watched, as the meteorite descended towards the Earth's atmosphere, however, something had happened the moment it touched air, and started to build up speed in its descent. A storm front that had begun building around the middle of the Atlantic Ocean suddenly changed course, traveling towards Europe with unnatural speed, as if God himself were moving to intercept Magneto's attack. The powerful mutant received broadcasts shortly after that from Earth; broadcasts of what had happened due to his recent attack, and more importantly, what hadn't happened. The House of Commons was definitely still standing. Even so, Magneto waited to hear what witnesses said about the attack; what had actually happened from their point of view.

"Of course, we all thought it was the end, when the meteorite came out of the clouds, just like that, with no warning at all," one man on the scene described, "but all of a sudden, the clouds grew thicker, and we all heard a noise like a shout... I could have sworn I saw something like... Something like a giant, standing over the city, but it was only for a second, and then, suddenly, a bolt of lightning came out of the clouds in a flash, and it hit the meteorite right through the center, blasting it to dust before it could hit the building. Of course, lots of people don't want to talk like this anymore, but to me, this seems like an act of God."

"But which god?" Magneto muttered, as he turned off the screen, and looked back out the window at Earth. It looked so small and fragile from his place in that asteroid base, but it had many defenders, and they were ready for him. Magneto didn't like the idea of going down to Earth and killing anyone directly, but as long as his meteorites were proving to be so ineffective against the superhumans, it might very well be necessary to gather still more Allies, and make open war on both the X-men and the Avengers; maybe even the Fantastic Four, too.

However, as he thought about those things, Magneto heard a message being transmitted to his location by the communications system he'd built into his asteroid base, and trained all the Allies to use. The voice that came over that system was a welcome one. It was the voice of Guardian, and in that instance, he spoke to Magneto in English, albeit with a thick Italian accent.

"Magneto." Guardian said, "We should speak in private. I have discovered something that may prove useful to us."

Magneto had plans to use one more meteorite to try to strike at the Earth, before he'd feel the need to take more direct action, but at that point, he felt as if he were up against a wall somewhat. None of his meteors were hitting their intended targets, and it was only a matter of time before someone discovered an effective means of attacking his base. He was eager to listen to any tactical plans, and feedback from any of the other Allies, before he faced that hard decision, particularly in the case of Guardian, who'd never quite lived up to his name, but always seemed intelligent and supportive. In moments, Magneto had left the guidance chamber of Asteroid M, and was headed down the hallway, towards Guardian's quarters, and in just over a minute, he'd arrived there, knocking politely on the sheet metal, that the door was made of.

"Enter." came the voice of Guardian from inside the room, and when Magneto stepped inside, he could see that Guardian was still at his computer, and was watching low-def news broadcasts from Earth, just as Magneto had been a moment before, except that Magneto had been watching broadcasts from the scene of the disaster, while Guardian seemed more interested in short interview blurbs from people living in outlying territories of the United Kingdom, far away from the larger cities. A pole had recently been taken of most of Europe, and large sections of England and southern Ireland had already responded to the pole by saying that their belief in the supernatural had grown, based on what had happened in Washington recently. Magneto found most of Guardian's interests to be confusing, though. None of the people or occurrences he was studying seemed all that important, in his view.

"Magneto," Guardian said, pausing the video feed for a moment, "If your plan to terrorize mankind into an acceptance of mutants fails, do you have a plan B?"

"Of course." Magneto replied, "Even if Asteroid M is breached by forces great enough to overpower us, there are several methods of escape available to the Allies, and several reserve bases we can retreat to, to regroup on the planet itself. I've even started work on reserve plans, involving seismic tremors."

"Clever..." Guardian remarked, though he was clearly not that interested in Magneto's plans in that respect, "I'll be frank, though, Magneto. What I've seen... What I've faced in the past... All of this seems like such a small-scale, and ineffectual method of doing things. Now, there are other means; other ways of fixing the problems you've brought to my attention. There were times when people looked to those with special powers as guides, and teachers, rather than as despots. At one time, not all undisputed leaders were considered tyrants, because many were recognized for the good things they brought into the world. I would prefer if you were to become that kind of ruler."

"I have no desire to be a ruler." Magneto replied quickly, "The leadership position I'm in now is one of inspiration and hard work, but I don't wish to control society; just coax it back onto the proper path. I'm a liberator, not a dominator."

"Interesting." Guardian muttered, looking away for a moment, "Still, you must know that every powerful person will have followers; those who believe in their cause, and march behind their banner."

"Leading an army, or a small group of people is a mantle that I'm willing to take up." Magneto replied with a slight smile, "However, like yourself, leadership isn't my goal."

"Of course not." Guardian observed aloud, "You care about your people. It's one of the most important qualities needed in leadership. Another important quality is faith. Having spent all of this time in this asteroid stronghold of yours, I've come to understand and appreciate what you're attempting to bring about. It's only in times of peace that people can truly forget their worries, and live happy lives, and that makes peace between all types of people a goal worth striving for. However, it seems that faith is more common during war, than during peace. That's a bit unfortunate, but people will believe what they can see at this day in age, so it affords me a new opportunity in particular. I would like to go down to these places where religious belief is growing, and try to spread my faith through the people who live there. If I'm successful, I may yet be of use to your cause."

"You're leaving the asteroid right now?" Magneto asked, "During this time of panic?"

"What better time to seek out faith?" Guardian asked with a broad smile, "Don't worry about me. I'll survive regardless, and if I succeed, it could mean an easier kind of victory for us both."

Magneto wasn't sure he liked the idea, but Guardian hadn't displayed any useful powers since he'd arrived, and Magneto was almost entirely certain that the Italian mutant's path to power would be a different one from his, whether he liked it or not. It was the nature of Guardian's powers, which derived strength from the faith of others, in him, and in his abilities, and at that point, he needed the chance to find himself. If he could learn more about his powers, or about how to assist Magneto in his cause, that was worth a little risk, and it was worth letting him go off on his own for a while. There was only one thing that Magneto needed to hear from Guardian first.

"I just want you to tell me that you won't run off and abandon our cause completely." Magneto said, at which point Guardian got to his feet, and put his hands on Magneto's upper arms. He looked a little disappointed, but very sincere about what he said next.

"Magneto, you saved me when I was lost and alone, and had no sense of self." Guardian replied, "For that, you have my eternal gratitude. I give you my word that no matter what happens, I will return to assist you in time, and I never break my word."

Magneto tried to force a smile, as Guardian released him, and turned off his computer, then headed for the doorway out of his room. However, Magneto was surprised by that, because he wasn't sure what Guardian was planning to do, specifically.

"Guardian?" Magneto asked, "Are you leaving right this minute?"

"Yes." Guardian replied, stopping in his tracks, "May I use one of your shuttles?"

"I didn't realize you knew how to fly a shuttle." Magneto said in amazement.

"It's not that complicated," Guardian replied quickly with a calm smile on his lips, "I used to fly something like it a long time ago."

However, that comment surprised Magneto more than anything. He'd only recently designed his jet shuttles as all-terrain crafts, superior to anything that had, to his knowledge, ever been built before, and he was curious where Guardian had seen anything like it in the past.

"What did you fly before, exactly?" Magneto asked, confusion and suspicion starting to show in his own expression. However, when he asked that question, Guardian paused, trying to come up with an explanation, but his smile was fading, and he was starting to stare off into space. When he finally got around to replying, he didn't seem the least bit confident about it.

"Strange..." Guardian muttered, "I can't quite... recall the specifics. I don't really... I don't really remember. It must have been something from when I was younger, before I started to forget things. I'll have to think about that."

Guardian's words continued to worry Magneto, as he left his room, and headed for the shuttle launching bay, but Magneto wasn't about to try to stop him. Guardian was already headed into dangerous territory, and if an incomplete knowledge of shuttle operation made that danger greater, it didn't change the situation all that much.

However, when Magneto left the room just a moment later, he didn't realize that his conversation with Guardian had been overheard by another member of the Allies; a member who'd been looking for an opportunity, and who, suddenly, had found it.

* * *

One of Bobby Drake's favorite hobbies, when he wasn't training in the use of his powers, or trudging through some class that he hated, was playing basketball with some of the other students at the Xavier Institute. He enjoyed it, they enjoyed it, and every so often, when it was just basic practice, rather than a real game, where the score was being kept, Bobby would wind up getting the chance to play a silly prank on one of his classmates. He really enjoyed doing that too, whether it was sliding up to the basket, or just icing up the ball. It gave him the chance to use his powers, and still have a good time. At one point, he'd covered nearly every player on the other team in snow temporarily, just for kicks, though he'd gotten them right back out a minute later, to prevent them from freezing. He'd really gotten in trouble for that one.

However, just as Bobby missed what should have been a very easy basket, he noticed that something was ruining the practice game he was playing, and for once, it wasn't his fault. Dark storm clouds were approaching the Xavier Institute, and thunder could be heard on the horizon. The other students were already packing up their things, and heading back inside, but Bobby was determined not to let a little rain ruin his fun, so he iced up. The more water there was in the air, the more of it Bobby could turn into ice, and therefore, he was at his most powerful in the middle of a rainstorm. However, just as he missed yet another basket, he heard another thunderclap, then another, each time growing closer. Not sure what to make of it, Bobby looked up at the sky, and was just able to make out a figure of some kind, descending through the storm clouds towards his position. It was dark and raining, and the figure in the clouds was still very far away, so Bobby couldn't tell who it was, at first, but as that figure got closer, Bobby saw, to his delight, that it was Ororo, riding on the wind currents below the storm clouds. Raindrops turned aside when they got close to her, electricity crackled all around her, and she seemed to be surrounded by a bubble of warm air. When she finally descended to Bobby's eye level, he could see lightning dancing in her eyes, and as she approached him, he was absolutely delighted by the sight.

"I guess you can do more than you thought, huh?" Bobby asked, as the storm clouds faded harmlessly into nothingness above her.

Ororo nodded once in reply, then said, with some enthusiasm, "Let's see what we can do about that special training you wanted."

* * *

End


	22. X Men 6: The Solution

X-Men Neo

Issue 6

"The Solution"

* * *

Bobby Drake could feel his body freezing up all around him. He had both eyes closed, and the world around him was growing colder by the second. In the past, Bobby had hardly ever felt really cold. It was like his body's mutant ability to gather and freeze water had prevented him from feeling it when it was freezing outside, but sitting dead center in an Antarctic glacier, feeling the ice covering him from all sides, Bobby Drake at last felt cold. He could tell that his body was trying to adapt to the frigid climate; struggling to force his mutant powers to a brand new level, and it was succeeding, after a fashion. The intensity with which he was feeling the cold all around him had gradually been diminishing, but it was continuing to get colder and colder as the ice grew around him. At last, in one final moment, he could feel the ice covering his head completely, and he knew that it was only a matter of time before the air in his ice pocket started to run out. If he didn't come to some kind of revelation in the use of his powers by then, there was a strong chance that he was going to die. Bobby Drake. however, never even considered the possibility of death. He wasn't, he knew, going to die. He was going to find his revelation, and he was going to be a great hero.

Seconds ticked by, as Bobby tried to keep his breathing even and measured. He could feel that the cold sensations had stopped increasing after only a few more seconds. If he'd been anyone else, Bobby Drake would have been frozen solid by that point. However, his body was still trying its best to figure out how to deal with the intense sensations of cold it was being presented with, and Bobby could feel those sensations falling away. He couldn't be entirely certain that that signified an increase in his territory, or in his x-force, or indeed, that his powers were increasing at all, and it was starting to become hard to breath, but... but he had such a strong feeling that he was getting closer to a real answer. Bobby knew that in just a few more seconds, he'd have adapted to the cold completely, and he couldn't give up.

That was when it happened. Bobby Drake found himself falling and falling, and soon, everything went dark.

* * *

In just a few hours, Robert Drake flung open the doors to the Xavier institute, and rushed towards Professor Xavier's office. He was utterly soaked, but he was also totally delighted, as he opened those doors, looking for him. The Professor, it turned out, was teaching a class at that point, so Bobby quickly did something he never would have thought to do before. In the past, he might have run through the entire building, shouting the Professor's name, and disrupting everyone, but in that instance, he simply closed his eyes, and called out with his thoughts.

"Professor X!"

"Bobby?" Xavier asked, "Where have you been? You have a whole day's worth of classwork to make up, and..."

"I know how to stop Magneto, professor." Bobby interrupted with a smile, "I know how to get to his asteroid base."

* * *

In only ten minutes, class was over, and the rest of the classes for the day had been put on hold, if not canceled completely. Most of the X-men expected Bobby's "plan" to be nothing worth listening to, but by that point, they were willing to listen to just about any kind of idea.

"Listen..." Bobby said, as the X-men all gathered in Xavier's study, "I have to tell you guys something. The other day, I wanted Ororo to help me with my training, to try to reach a new level in figuring out my powers, you know? Well, she'd just found a whole bunch of new ways to use her powers, because she'd been outside in the harsh weather, and I kind of wanted to do something like that. Eventually, she took me all the way to Antarctica, and set me down on a glacier. I told her to leave me there, and we argued about it for a while, but she agreed to in the end. I told her I'd find a way to get back myself, and sure enough, I did. When I was there in the antarctic, surrounded by ice, it looked like I was going to suffocate, but then, suddenly, I found my whole body changing, like my skin was turning transparent, and my blood was freezing, and then all of a sudden... All of a sudden, I was falling through the ice, and into the water underneath, and I could feel the air bubbles passing through me, as I swam for the surface, and then, I didn't need to breath through my nose or mouth anymore. My whole body had been changed into something different... Like... like what happens when Piotr uses his powers. It was like my whole body turned to ice."

"That's... very good," Xavier said after a moment, "but you shouldn't have pushed yourself so hard. One can't just force mutant powers to..."

"But I can do all kinds of things now that I couldn't do before." Bobby exclaimed, "Look at this."

As Bobby spoke, a large snowball had started to form in his hand, and he tossed it into the air, then just a moment later, steam started to erupt from the snowball, as the snow melted in a flash, then re-formed back in place. In time, the snowball simply hovered in mid-air, supported by the jets of steam underneath it, which seemed to spin back around, and re-solidify into snow, a mere foot away from the snowball itself.

"I don't just make ice anymore." Bobby said with a broad smile, "I can melt and freeze water in any direction, and at any speed I want, which means that with a little practice, I can do more than just make walls, shields, slides, and things. I can make ice creations that can move."

"Moving parts made of simple water..." Professor Mccoy muttered in awe, as he watched Bobby's new feat, "Fantastic. Bobby, is this the method you wanted to use to attack Magneto?"

"It sure is." Bobby replied, "If you tell me where to aim, Hank, I can dig us right into Magneto's satellite in a rocket made of pure ice."

* * *

Sure enough, it seemed like Bobby's plan was going to work. The temperature in the blackbird's hangar was lowered to just below freezing, so that Bobby could spend most of the rest of the day working on his rocket ship ice sculpture, complete with ladders, wings and seats. The only question was whether or not the self-proclaimed Iceman could generate enough X-force to break free of Earth's gravitation.

Later in the evening, Bobby finally finished, and Jean started using her powers to move soft, warm cushions onto the icy seats of Bobby's rocket, with the intention of making them tolerable to sit in. Soon, the X-men were all tied into those seats with a sturdy, yet last-minute series of belts they'd cobbled together for that purpose. Safety restraints were absolutely necessary for space shuttles, although Bobby couldn't have made them himself without much more training. In a very short time, the X-men were about to embark on their most dangerous mission yet; knowing full well that there was a very strong chance that all of them would be dead before midnight, and yet, it was a danger they faced together, each knowing that they'd learned a whole lot about themselves, their powers, and one another since they'd first become a team, and each counting on the others for backup and support. Not one of them would have asked for better friends to stand beside in that time of danger, or a better group to fight alongside for the coming battle. Still, none of that was said aloud, of course. None of it needed to be said. The X-men were a team.

"Here we go." Bobby said, as he heard the hangar doors opening near the front of the ship. His place in the icy rocket was close to the back, where he'd be controlling the steam pressure and the rocket momentum. Moments after the hangar doors finished opening, Bobby started using his powers to their full extent, as hundreds of gallons of water were flash frozen, then turned to steam, then turned back into ice, then back into steam again. A continuous burst of steam power shot downward from the rocket's bottom, launching its airtight front end and cockpit into the sky, in a burst of power and speed. The hangar doors closed up behind them, transforming back into an ordinary basketball court, as they shot upwards with fantastic speed and force, further and further towards the location that Professor Mccoy had given them. Fortunately, Bobby didn't have to do much steering, since most changes in course correction could be set in motion by Ororo or Jean, using blasts or wind, or telekinetic pushes this way or that. At last, the ice rocket broke the Earth's gravity completely, and shot outward, into space, at which point Bobby re-froze the steam he'd been using as propulsion, and just let the ship keep drifting into space, as Mccoy had instructed him to. Bobby didn't quite understand why, but apparently, additional momentum wasn't needed for maintaining top speed in space.

"Well, the next thing to do is get to Magneto's base." Mccoy said, "I've been tracking the asteroids, trying to determine which one keeps sending out the shuttles. Magneto's been using some kind of equipment to try to conceal that from long-range scanners, but I know what a shuttle hangar doorway looks like, so if we get close enough, we should be able to spot it with our eyes. We'll just have to hope that Magneto doesn't have any weapons protecting his base from outside intrusion, but if he does, I have a few ideas. Jean, if he fires any bullets or shells at us, I want you to try to turn them to one side. Kurt, I want you to try to teleport onto his base as soon as we get within range. Jean should try to read the mind of someone on that base, so that you can teleport into their line of sight. Even if that person is Magneto, you'll be safer on the asteroid than on our ship. If those plans don't work, I have a weapon in the bag at my feet, that that can use simple light impulses to melt metal. That may buy us a few more seconds to figure out how we're going to get inside, without decompressing the whole asteroid."

Sure enough, in just a moment more, flashes of light began to explode all around the icy space ship, and Bobby had to use his already-exhausted powers to keep the whole ship from falling apart. At least, however, the attacks made it easy to tell which asteroid was Magneto's base. Three large sections of refined metal ore could be seen around the outside of it, one of which housed a viewing window in its center, while another seemed to be a weapons deployment system, and the third was clearly the shuttle launching bay that Mccoy had been searching for. The X-men had found Magneto's asteroid base.

Without even needing to be told, Jean steered the ship closer toward the base, trying to avoid as many of the blasts as she could, while Bobby did repair work as best he could on the damaged sections of the ship. The ice shuttle got closer and closer to the asteroid, as Nightcrawler prepared for teleportation, and Mccoy opened his bag, retrieving a large, heavy-looking device with a crystalline orb on one end. With any luck, the worst was yet to come.

* * *

Magneto frowned deeply as he looked out the window at the translucent space shuttle that was charging, full-tilt, towards his base, clearly with the intention of ramming it. Quickly, he made some calculations, then made an announcement over his communications system.

"All Allies evacuate wing B and prepare for emergency lock down. If you're less than ten yards from wing B, grab hold of the nearest door frame and brace for impact."

Sure enough, it was only a few seconds after that, that the entire asteroid shook violently as Magneto sealed off the wing that he knew the X-men would be colliding with.

* * *

As it turned out, Mccoy's weapon hadn't been terribly effective at fighting back against Magneto, but the moment their icy ship had torn its way into his stronghold, he'd gotten quite a bit of use out of his metal-melting device, sealing up the hole they'd made on the way in, then melting his way into the next wing of the asteroid. The entire icy rocket that the X-men had used to get up to Asteroid M had been melted into simple water vapor by the time they made it into the main body of Magneto's base, but the important thing was shutting Magneto and his space-based weapon down for good.

"Jean?" Scott asked, as soon as they'd broken through the locked-down doorways that Magneto had been using to try to contain the damage to his base, "How many mutants are we dealing with this time?"

Jean closed her eyes for a moment, but shortly shook her head.

"If Magneto's here, he's still shielded from psychic probes. There are at least five others, but I'm not sure what happened to the other two he had with him during the Pentagon attack, or the other mutant he apparently recruited during the fight before that one. Logan, can I have a second opinion?"

"Yeah." Logan replied, having started to sniff the air for a moment, "There's six. Magneto's here. The white-haired kid, and the girl with the glowing hands are gone. So's the guy Magneto picked up from Italy."

"We might just have a chance if we stick close together, and take this one step at a time." Cyclops said, grinning a little as he spoke, "Jean. Can you get the layout of this base from any of our opponents?"

Jean closed her eyes again for a moment, then quickly said "this way" as she led the group down the next hall, towards the guidance chamber.

* * *

Magneto quickly spoke into the intercom, as he prepared the defense systems, the moment he'd seen the video feed of the X-Men charging down the halls of Asteroid M. He had a tactical response to make.

"Allies." Magneto said into the communication system, "The X-men have intruded into Asteroid M. Engage them on sight, and subdue them if you can, while I prepare the defense systems. If the risk is great enough, move towards the control room and regroup."

With that transmission over, Magneto opened a locked, metal box, which had been off to one side of the room, and flipped the small, green switch that had been inside of it. It was a security measure that he'd designed in case of particularly forceful intruders. The machine used a magnetic field generator to force iron dust into a form designed to act as a series of barriers. Of course, if the X-men could break through real barriers, they could break through those, but if they tried to, they were in for a nasty surprise.

* * *

Marvel Girl had taken the lead, as the X-men charged down the corridors of Magneto's asteroid base, but after running for almost sixty seconds since their escape from wing B, Jean found that she couldn't run anymore. A large, metal barrier was descending in front of her, and it didn't look as much like a solid sheet of metal, as like a silver waterfall, gradually turning solid. She had absolutely no idea what the substance was, but it was coming down all around the X-men, solidifying into numerous barriers, and confusing her attempts to figure out where she was in the base.

"Stand back." Jubilee said with a grin as her fist started glowing brightly, but before Scott could even finish yelling "Wait a minute!" Jubilee had thrown one of her explosive orbs directly into the metallic barriers, and in a moment more, there was an explosion that shook that whole section of the base.

Scott wasn't entirely sure what had happened at that point. All he knew was that far from blowing open the barriers that had formed around them, Jubilee's bomb seemed to have had the very opposite effect, causing the barrier in front of them to expand outward with enormous force, and knocking the X-men backwards through the air, where additional barriers came down around them. It was as if Magneto's machines had reacted to the explosive force by exploding themselves, trapping each of the X-men in a separate enclosure, surrounded by barriers that had no obvious weak point.

In a way, Scott Summers wanted to just burst through the walls with his optic blasts, but he had a sinking feeling that it wouldn't be so easy; that the walls would just retaliate if he did, and that even if he did manage to burst through, there was a good possibility that he might hurt whoever was on the other side.

As Scott thought about those things, however; while he was trapped in that tiny chamber, he heard a loud crash from nearby, as if someone were colliding hard with the floor, and before he could turn around to see who it was, a long, slippery tongue had snaked out, and seized his visor, yanking it off his face in just a second. That was when Scott heard the voice of a mutant he'd never spoken with directly before; the voice of Toad.

"Yeah. That's better. Can't see a thing now, huh? I'll bet even I could beat you like this."

Scott kept his eyes closed tightly as he turned around, and felt something hard collide with his face. Once again, Scott was under attack, and he could feel his back being slammed against the wall behind him, as another, larger object hit him hard in the chest. Scott knew that he had to keep his eyes closed, or he ran the risk of blowing the whole place to kingdom come, but as long as he kept them closed, he couldn't see a thing, and Toad was on the attack.

* * *

Jubilee had developed a splitting headache since the wall's explosion had knocked her backwards into a separate chamber. If nothing else, she knew not to try anything like that again, although she wasn't quite certain how else to escape from the chamber she'd found herself in. Energy bombs were really all she had. Of course, she'd improved in her own way since joining up with the X-men. The implosion bombs she used to draw in and vaporize matter were probably one of the most destructive forces she'd ever seen. The problem was that there was no guarantee that an implosion bomb would be able to get her out from behind those barriers.

As Jubilee finally stopped to consider her situation before acting, however, her careful thoughts were interrupted by the voice of a teenage girl.

"I've been waiting for you to show up."

Almost at once, one of the nearest walls seemed to melt away, as a young woman stepped into Jubilee's enclosure, surrounded by a shimmering orb of some kind of power. She looked extremely confident, as the wall returned to its place behind her.

"My name's Charge," the girl said, looking eagerly at Jubilee, "and with my powers, I can take out any X-man. I'm supposed to just subdue you if I can, but once I do... who knows? Maybe I'll decide to electrocute you, then blast you out an airlock somewhere. I'll bet Magneto would never be able to figure it out, and even if he did, I don't think he'd really be that upset. After all, you X-men just want to take him apart. All this time, you've been doing nothing for mutant rights. Magneto got the ball rolling. If you're so intent on stabbing your own kind in the back, I guess you'll just have to die."

At once, Charge began to gesture outward with her hands, and something started to happen to her force field. Small, round protrusions began to form on it from all sides, and Charge grinned wickedly as they broke away from her main force field like a cell dividing in two, forming into smaller, but still glowing balls of force that hovered in front of her in mid-air. In seconds, there were dozens.

"Take a good look at these while you can." Charge boasted with a smile, "Tiny force fields, charged with electricity. They'll shock anyone they touch, and they all move where I want them to."

As she said that, the force fields all rushed forward, straight towards Jubilee. With only a second to think about it, Jubilee held both hands out, and in moments, energy bombs were flying out at Charge in a volley, each one intended to intercept one of her force fields. However, as Jubilee's energy bombs made contact with the flying force fields, they seemed to start shrinking, then melting away into Charge's attack, causing the glow of her enemy's weapons to grow brighter.

"Dammit!" Jubilee exclaimed, as she tried to run off to one side, away from the force fields, but they all followed her in mid-air, and in the end, one of them made contact with her left leg, sending a powerful electric shock through her whole body. Jubilee shrieked in miserable agony, as the force field faded, and she collapsed to the ground. The pain was excruciating, made no easier by the way Charge was boasting about it.

"Maybe I forgot to mention that my force fields also absorb energy. Face it. You just had some bad luck, having to fight me."

"You're the unlucky one." Jubilee thought silently, as she formed an implosion bomb in one hand. It would drain her pretty badly, and it would probably kill Charge, but if it was the only way Jubilee could survive, she was ready to make that choice. After only a moment, she'd tossed the bomb into the air, hoping that somehow, in some way, Charge might just barely manage to survive.

The implosion bomb flew through the air, past the mobile force field weapons, and hit Charge's personal force field right in the center. In just a moment more, there was a massive flash of light, and Jubilee had to look away.

However, only a short time later, she heard the one thing she'd been most hoping not to.

"Gee, you don't exactly learn fast, do you?"

At once, another powerful electric shock traveled through her body, and Jubilee was shoved forward from behind, onto her face. As she slowly looked up, she could see that Charge was standing over her, looking just as arrogant as ever; her force field shimmering even brighter than it had a moment before. That was when it became obvious to Jubilee that none of her attacks would mean anything against Charge.

"That last bomb used energy a little differently than the ones you used before," Charge said, "But it was still energy. The truth is, if you can't break through my force field, you can't beat me, and right now, you have no power or weapon that can hurt me in the least."

* * *

When the explosion had separated most of the X-men, Logan had found, to his surprise, that he and Jean had been shoved into the same chamber together. The way they'd been separated hadn't been intentional, of course, but it sure seemed strange that the two of them should wind up together. However, a moment later, Logan started to see that if things hadn't been planned out by Magneto's group, the X-men were just having a lot of bad luck. A thin, fog-like mist was starting to seep into the chamber with Logan and Jean, and yet, something didn't smell quite right about it. It was almost as if the mist itself was alive.

In seconds, Logan found some confirmation for that theory, however, as the mists started to gather, condensing into a single, large cloud, then a smaller cloud, then into a girl with long, red hair. In that respect, she didn't look too different from Jean, but she was obviously one of the enemies they'd fought so hard against in the past.

"Sorry about this," the girl said, "but my name is Ethereal, and I have orders to subdue the two of you, until more permanent measures can be taken to contain you."

Jean seemed just a little surprised, but she reacted quickly, using her powers to seize Ethereal, and lift her into the air.

"It's not that easy." Jean replied, "We're mutants too, you know."

"I know," Ethereal said, from where Jean was holding her in mid-air, "but that doesn't make you invincible. You'd better let go of me, or your friend over there is going to die."

"What?" Jean asked, confused, "What are you talking about?"

"I have the power to transform myself and any inanimate matter into mist." Ethereal replied, a frown growing on her face, "Didn't your friend ever tell you that his skeleton was made of metal?"

In just a second, Jean turned around and stared at Logan, as she saw his whole body starting to seize up. His claws were started to change; fading into a thin mist, as he finally gave into the agony, and let out an ear-piercing scream. In moments, Logan was close to losing consciousness from something that Ethereal was doing to him, and that was all that Jean needed to see.

"Stop!" she exclaimed, "Stop it! Stop it, or I'll make you stop!"

"That's an empty threat." Ethereal replied sadly, "I don't need to be able to move my body to use my mutant powers. They respond to my thoughts alone. Your friend only has one chance. Surrender, sit down, and behave yourself, and I'll put him back the way he was. With his healing powers, I'm sure he'll survive if you do that."

Jean Grey was miserable and furious, but there wasn't a whole lot she could really do about it. She had some ability to telepathically control others, but those powers weren't very strong yet, and she could only really use them when she was very close to the person she wanted to influence. Just as Ethereal had said, the only way she could stop the mist-based mutant was by sacrificing Logan's safety. In the end, she was only left with one choice.

"Alright!" Jean exclaimed furiously, "Alright. I give up."

* * *

Ororo and Hank had been thrown backwards by the explosion, and wound up in the same chamber together, although when it sealed them off from the others, Hank couldn't help but feel troubled by that. He still had the weapon he'd used the melt the ship's metal walls before, but after the way they'd reesponded to Jubilee's power, he was pretty sure that his weapon wouldn't draw a favorable reaction from Magneto's new barriers either.

The moment the two mutants had been thrown back into the same room, however, Hank had grabbed the ground with his hands, walked backwards on them for a few seconds, until he got his balance, then righted himself and looked around. Unfortunately, Storm had fallen just as quickly as he had, and had, in the end, collided with something other than the ground, or rather someone.

Suddenly, a tall, well-muscled man had grabbed Storm from behind, and Hank felt pretty bad for him. Apparently, he had no idea what he was getting himself into.

At once, powerful winds swept up all around Ororo Munroe, and she started rising back upwards again, along with the man who'd grabbed her. In moments, the two were torn from one another in mid-air, and the larger man was thrown backwards through the air, colliding hard with the barrier behind him, though he still seemed to be in a fairly good mood while he slowly descended to the ground.

"Yeah..." the young man with the large muscles said, looking eager for a fight, "That's the spirit, honey. Now show me what you can really do."

Storm was growing absolutely furious as the young man spoke, and soon, dense fog was filling the whole room, as electricity crackled around her fingertips. In moments, that electric power shot outward in a hundred interconnected bolts, towards the enemy's position. However, at the last second, just as it was about to hit the strange mutant, the electricity scattered away from him, traveling throughout the whole room. Hank tried to avoid the stray lightning bolts as they zig-zagged back and forth around him, but in the end, one of those bolts of lightning made contact with his right hand, and dangerous levels of electric power shot through his body in a single shock, nearly paralyzing him. Hank Mccoy fell to the ground in seconds. He could feel that his body wasn't doing what he wanted it to, but aside from that, he couldn't feel much else. The shock had been so powerful, that it felt like it had fried several key points in his muscles.

However, as the lightning and fog faded, Storm was starting to feel worried by what she was seeing. Her enemy was still standing upright, and still grinning mischievously as he looked her in the eye.

"What?" Storm asked, very confused, "But I don't... How?"

"Allow me to introduce myself." the young man said with a wicked grin, "The name's Impervious, and I'm... Well, figure it out. It's only a matter of time before you use up all your mutant power and get worn out. In fact, I'd say you're pretty close to that already. Me, though... I could keep going like this forever."

* * *

When the barrier had knocked Nightcrawler into the air, he hadn't even waited to stop flying backwards before he made his move, grabbing the person nearest to him, and teleporting through one of the barriers before it could descend. As it turned out, the person that Nightcrawler had seized was Piotr, who called himself Colossus out in the field. The two of them had needed to continue teleporting, until they made it into a large, open space, out of range of the metal dust barriers, and it was only then, when they took a moment to relax and look around, that they realized they were right in the central guidance chamber of Magneto's entire base, and the master of magnetism himself was standing in mid-air nearby, looking down at them in frustration.

"M-magneto!" Kurt exclaimed, both fear and anger rushing through him as he spoke, "We won't let you hurt anyone else!"

"You X-men never understood the way the world works." Magneto replied, "That's the reason you didn't do all of this yourselves. It's the reason you're still trying to stop it from happening, even though it's inevitable."

"What are you yammering about?" Piotr demanded, getting to his feet, careful to stay out of his metallic form as he did so.

"I watched the televised interview that Cyclops gave to the media." Magneto replied, "I watched it several times over, in fact. Cyclops is surprisingly capable as a charismatic speaker. He knows how to make his words sound very, very good. Unfortunately, that's all they were; words. For instance, the idea that the X-men are trying to prevent a fight. If you're referring to the war between humans and mutants, nothing can prevent that. Every time there's been a large-scale change at any point in human history, it's always lead to war. The only difference is that mutants have the power to make their war a short one. It's simple naiveté to say that it's possible for humans and mutants to just live in peace, out of the goodness of their hearts. Humans are unthinking, predictable brutes who delight in tormenting anyone different from them. Surely, you must realize that much, at least."

"Humans are flawed beings; it's true." Nightcrawler replied sadly, "Like everyone, they make mistakes, assumptions, blunders... They even commit crimes against their fellow man, because of how badly they allow themselves to be led astray. When those crimes against man are passed into law, as they have been in modern America, it's easy to see all human life as brutal and barbaric. However, that is not the true nature of human beings, any more than the true nature of a flower is to serve as a parasite to drain Earth's minerals. All humans make mistakes, but in the depths of their souls, there is always still goodness; there is always still the chance for redemption and forgiveness. No human being does wrong for its own sake; not even you."

"This isn't a philosophical matter," Magneto replied icily, "nor am I trying to judge the worth of the human soul. I leave that in the hands of God."

When Magneto said that, Kurt was quite taken aback. He hadn't suspected that Magneto might have been religious; even a little bit. Magneto had always seemed so willing to justify stealing and killing that, Kurt had thought, religion would have seemed like an obstruction to him, and yet, when he spoke, Kurt could tell that Magneto's faith was genuine, if warped by the horrors he'd experienced, and the losses he'd suffered. Magneto was like the lamb that had gotten lost from its flock, having run away from the guidance of the shepherd, and yet still longing, in the end, for that shepherd's protection. It wasn't a terribly uncommon viewpoint, even if it was a contradiction in faith.

"Magneto..." Kurt said, his anger starting to fade, and his voice softening, "I do not know what happened to embitter you so much. You must have experienced much loss, to become so hardened, that you've forgotten the importance of patience and mercy, but ask yourself this; is this the path that God would wish for you to take? Is this course of violence truly what is best for your soul?"

"You're right." Magneto said, though his reply contained more simple sadness than anger, "You don't know what's happened to me, or what I've lost. I think that if you lost everyone you cared about most, you'd also find that the word of God rings somewhat hollow, and doesn't carry the positive overtones it once did. Long ago, everyone I knew or cared about either died, was lost to me, or betrayed me, turning their backs on me. The problem isn't simply that those things happened to me, however, but that they've happened to countless others as well. So many mutants in this age suffer from confusion, fear, and bigotry on the part of those who surround them. I swore that I would do whatever I needed to, in order to prevent that from happening to anyone else. I swore that I wouldn't abandon my people to their enemies, as..."

Magneto didn't finish that sentence, but Kurt knew what he would have said. "...As God has abandoned them." Indeed, it was easy to see God's lack of proactive action on the behalf of the faithful as an abandonment of sorts, but then, maybe certain kinds of proactive action were simply wrong, regardless of the good intentions that might motivate them. In Kurt's mind, Magneto was a living example of that fact; so desperate to prevent suffering similar to his own, that he'd jumped headlong into immoral actions for the purpose of promoting his cause. Magneto was driven by his emotions; not selfish emotions, but emotions that reacted to any sadness or unfairness that he saw with destructive fury. Magneto would have done anything; destroyed anyone or any group of people, to stop the kinds of wickedness and unfairness that had scarred him in the past, and prevent those same types of evil from harming others in the future. It was a fervor that could justify any action to the one who possessed it. Though he was clearly an intelligent man, Magneto was also completely driven into his path in life by his feelings, and no argument could penetrate the wall of force and philosophy that he'd built around those feelings. Magneto had barricaded himself off from the reasoning of others, and the reasoning of God, and there was no reaching him. The thought made Kurt extremely sad, but...

"There's nothing more to say, is there?" Kurt just asked sadly, as Magneto continued to watch the two X-men carefully.

Magneto just shook his head in reply.

"I'd prefer to think that you X-men could come to an understanding of the truth about human nature, and join me in my cause," Magneto said at last, "but at this point, that seems unlikely to happen."

"I will not allow you to hurt anyone else." Kurt insisted.

"It's too late for that." Magneto replied, "A third meteorite has just been launched towards the central political buildings of Chicago. Of course, that's just the area it's most likely to hit directly. I suspect that given the speed at which the meteor is traveling, it'll demolish most of the buildings in the financial district as well."

At once, Kurt turned to face the main window that looked out from the asteroid base, in the direction of planet Earth, and sure enough, he could see the large meteor inching closer to Earth, starting to change color as it entered the Earth's atmosphere, and picked up speed and friction. Nightcrawler was horrified by the sight; a horror made even worse by the fact that he knew that as long as he and the X-men were on Asteroid M, there wasn't anything they could do to stop the meteor.

* * *

Iceman had gotten a little disoriented for a few seconds as he'd been thrown to the floor, and the walls had closed up around him, but when he'd gotten his bearings, he started examining his surroundings. The trap was a pretty impressive one. When they were fully-solidified, the iron dust walls looked almost exactly like normal ones. It was hard to tell the difference. Bobby knew a few things about them already, though. In one form or another, all of the walls that surrounded him were made of metal, and they didn't react well to explosions.

However, as Iceman was looking around at the walls, one nearby seemed to turn back into simple iron dust, and in through that opening, from another closed-off area, came a young mutant with blond hair and blue eyes. He looked extremely confident as he approached Bobby; balls of fire forming in his hands.

"Hey." the boy said, "The name's Pyro. My thing's fire. Word is, I'm supposed to subdue you or some such thing, but you know what? I think I'd rather just melt you instead!"

Bobby quickly leapt to one side, as Pyro threw a ball of fire at him. The fireball's intense heat was oppressive, as it passed Bobby by on one side, fizzling before it could hit any of the walls, but Bobby could tell that it would be better not to try to take one of those balls of fire head-on.

"That's my MO." Pyro said, as he threw another fireball towards Bobby, "Fire melts ice, little guy!"

However, Iceman had heard enough already. Obviously, Pyro was very eager to kill him, and very capable of controlling his mutant powers with his thoughts. Bobby didn't like being put in that position, but he had to stop Pyro somehow.

Suddenly, Pyro's attack stopped where it was; the fireballs in his hands fading, as his whole body started to seize up.

"Whatsamatter, Pyro?" Iceman asked, straightening up, as Pyro's attacks stopped, and his whole body seemed to be frozen in place "Brain freeze? Don't worry. That'll wear off in a few hours. I hope."

Convulsing, Pyro fell back onto the floor, as Bobby started moving around the enclosure, spreading ice all over every wall and barrier around him. In another second, a mallet made of ice formed in his hand, and he exclaimed aloud, as he swung it; "Fore!"

* * *

Cyclops was alone, fighting an enemy who'd seized his glasses, and seemed to be able to kick like a mule. Of course, Cyclops had never actually fought Toad before. Kurt had, and had won every single time, however, so Scott was pretty confident that he could have won if he'd been able to see. By that point, Scott didn't really want to use his optic blasts against Toad. He was pretty sure that doing that would have killed the attacking mutant, and Scott didn't really want to kill him; just incapacitate him.

Toad sure wasn't making things easy, though. He hadn't let up in his attack since he'd taken Scott's glasses, confounding his attempts to concentrate on locating him. It was only at that point, when his body ached all over, that Cyclops remembered the final advise that Logan had given him during their latest training session.

"When you're fighting a real enemy, you're gonna have a hard time focusing. Don't try to forget the pain, though. You can't do that. The pain is a part of you. See through it."

That was the first time that Scott truly understood what Logan had meant. Quickly raising both hands, and crouching down, Scott backed himself up against a wall, making sure to keep his eyes tightly shut the whole time. He could hear the sounds of his enemy leaping off the floors, walls, and even the ceiling repeatedly, and had a pretty good idea of where he was, even before Toad moved in for his next attack, striking Scott right across the face. In only a moment, Scott had seized his foe by the arm, and pulled it backwards, twisting Toad's arm into an unnatural angle, and knocking him to the ground. Just a moment after that, Scott raised one foot, and brought it down on what he assumed was his enemy's face. It was hard to tell, but he felt Toad go limp in his grasp. Without his powers, and without being able to see, Cyclops had won the fight by his senses of hearing and touch alone. Only a few seconds later, he heard an enormous crashing noise, and had to duck to avoid oncoming frozen debris.

"Cyclops?"

It was the voice of Bobby. He'd broken into Scott's chamber somehow. The sound gave Scott hope again.

"Iceman. Good timing." Cyclops said, "This guy took my visor a minute ago. Can you help me find it?"

Iceman retrieved the visor quickly from halfway across the chamber, and helped Scott get it back on, then looked at the unconscious mutant lying on the floor, with one arm still in Scott's grip.

"Whoa." Bobby muttered in amazement, "I thought I had an easy time. I guess I always knew you could beat these creeps with your eyes closed, bright-eyes."

Cyclops chuckled a little when Bobby said that, letting go of Toad.

"Come on." Scott said, "Let's get the others."

"Way ahead of you." Bobby replied, as he started icing up the walls.

* * *

Jubilee was truly afraid, as Charge prepared one final attack. She was scared, furious, and helpless. None of her powers seemed to be doing any good against Charge. She'd never been so close to giving up.

However, something about Jubilee didn't want to give in to despair. All the problems she'd faced as a kid, and as a teenager had hardened her to disappointment and suffering, and it had made her a fighter, but she couldn't justify that aspect of herself if she was willing to give up when things got tough, and hanging out with the X-men had taught her the importance of justice. When she'd been trying to train Illyana to get along with other human beings, Jubilee had seen in the younger girl the worst thing that she could possibly have become; a person driven to fight by her emotions, but seeking no justification for that fight, and she hadn't liked the sight of that kind of person. Jubilee wanted to prove that she wasn't fighting just to fight. She wanted to prove that her "eager knuckles," as Logan had called them, could be used for a greater purpose. It was something that she wanted to prove to the X-men, and to herself. That was the reason why, in spite of the excruciating pain that coursed through her body at that point, and her own waning mutant powers, Jubilee scrambled to her feet, to make one last attempt.

"You can't win." Charge said, "Still, I guess it's good that you want to keep trying. It's no fun polishing somebody off while they're lying down."

Jubilee, however, was grinning by that point. Her fists couldn't penetrate Charge's force field, and her bombs were equally useless against it. In other words, she needed a weapon. It was a situation that Jubilee had never been in before, but the moment she'd realized what kind of weapons were available to her, Jubilee knew that she could win.

"Brag while you can." Jubilee said, still smiling, "With this next bomb, I'm going to win this fight."

"You're still trying to use those bombs?" Charge asked, "Alright. Go ahead. Show me what you can do. I'll even let you throw your attack first, before I start mine."

"Suit yourself," Jubilee replied, smiling, "but that's not what I'd recommend."

In just a moment, Jubilee was holding an energy bomb in her hand, and threw it directly at Charge. Charge smiled, as it neared her location, getting closer and closer. Soon, she though, the energy of that bomb would belong to her, and Jubilee would be scared silly again.

However, as the bomb neared Charge's location, something new started to happen. Jubilee looked over to one side of the room, and at once, the bomb moved through the air, turning aside before it could touch Charge's force field, and Charge realized too late what Jubilee had done, when the bomb hit the wall closest to Charge, and exploded.

As before, the bomb itself did no damage to Charge's force field, but it was provoking a reaction from the wall. The last time Jubilee had hit one of those walls with one of her bombs, it had exploded outward, forcing everything and everyone back away from it, and in such a confined space, an expanding wall would undoubtedly crush any large force fields contained inside it. The only thing Jubilee wasn't sure of was whether or not she also would be crushed.

In a flash, the wall that Jubilee had hit reacted, seeming to force itself into the room with the power and speed of a genuine explosion, and hitting Charge's force field head-on, just as Jubilee had planned. Fortunately, there was just enough space left in that room for a fairly thin person to avoid being crushed, and Jubilee; scrawny teenage girl that she was, managed to stay out of the way of the wall, as Charge screamed in horror and helplessness. Moments later, there was the sound of someone falling to the ground, and Jubilee knew that she only had a moment to act. If Charge was still conscious, then she'd just raise her force field again, the moment she got her bearings back, and Jubilee had to take care of her before she could do that.

Just as the wall started to return to its previous position, Jubilee jumped halfway across the chamber and, seeing Charge just about to get back up, kicked her as hard as she could in the chin. Charge was out like a light in seconds.

Of course, that wasn't the end of Jubilee's adventure, because she could hear someone (who would later turn out to be Iceman) breaking through the walls, towards the chamber she was in, but Jubilee had won her fight, and she'd done her part, as one of the X-men. In Jubilee's mind, she was better than victorious; she was justified.

* * *

Logan was furious as he watched what was going on. He'd hardly ever been used as a hostage before, and it certainly wasn't a pleasant experience being the weak and helpless one, particularly since being in that position weakened the position of his allies. Logan hated being used to decrease the total strength of the team. He considered it a terrible injustice to the rest of his team members, and worse yet, by his own limitations, he was putting Jean in danger. Though he'd been rough on Jean in the past when she'd wanted training from him, Logan cared about her a lot, and she was just about the last person he'd ever wanted to endanger. It made him feel like dirt when he saw what was happening before his very eyes, and knew that he didn't have the power to stop it.

"So what now?" Jean asked, after all three of them had spent a few seconds in silence.

"What do you mean?" Ethereal replied, not sure what to make of Jean's question.

"Well, I obviously can't hurt you with my powers, as long as you're holding Wolverine hostage." Marvel Girl continued, "On the other hand, if you do kill him, you can bet I won't be happy about that, and there are about a hundred ways I could at least incapacitate you from here with my powers. In other words, it's a stalemate. So, again... what now?"

"Now we wait. If Magneto shows up, he can imprison you two." Ethereal replied, "On the other hand, if it's your friends who show up, they get roped into the same situation you're in now. They have to do what I say, or Wolverine over there dies."

"So we just sit here and wait?" Jean asked.

"Do you have a problem with that?" Ethereal demanded, raising one hand towards Wolverine again.

Marvel Girl, however, just looked frustrated when she replied, "Yeah, I do. It's boring. I mean..."

Marvel Girl hadn't been sure how well the "bored teenager" charade would play out; whether Ethereal would believe that Jean was really that uncaring and selfish, but it seemed that Ethereal was starting to get pretty bored herself, so she was falling into Jean's trap.

"Yeah..." Ethereal admitted after just a few seconds, "I guess it is, but I don't see any other way out of this situation."

"Can I at least talk with my friend while we're stuck here?" Jean asked, but Ethereal shook her head firmly.

"I don't think so." Ethereal said, "You might be trying to come up with some kind of escape plan. If you're going to talk, talk to me."

That was what Jean had been waiting for. The advantage was hers, and she claimed it.

"Darn." Jean said, "I don't know what to say. It's not like we've got anything in common. I mean, we want peace, and you're working with a warmonger."

"Magneto's a savior for mutantkind." Ethereal replied, "He wants what's best for us. He wants to get all mutants the rights we deserve."

"Well, yeah..." Jean lied, "but that's just the cover story, right? I mean, what's the real reason why you hang with Magneto? It seems like you actually care about him. I mean, like you really know what's going on."

"Look..." Ethereal said, pausing for a few seconds, to try to think of something to say that would excuse her from speaking the truth, "I... um... Well, it's just that..."

Ethereal sighed, and looked away for a moment, but it was obvious that her reasons for what she was doing were very different from Magneto's. Jean could tell that before she'd even said anything.

"I guess when you said you were getting bored..." Ethereal finally said, "I guess then, you were pretty close to figuring me out. That was one of the biggest things in my life that drove me; the times when I was bored."

Ethereal sighed again, and started to explain herself, nearly forgetting the difficult and dangerous situation she was in, "My whole life, I've always had times when I've been bored. In fact, I... I get bored so quickly and so easily, that I always need something new to do. I need an adventure, you know, like in myths; a quest for greatness. I need something to focus my attention on, that could change my living situation in the end. I mean, I've tried everything else. TV, movies, books, video games, music, but they all get boring after a while, and none of them change the fact that life itself is boring; human society is boring, you know?"

Unfortunately, Jean did have some idea of what Ethereal was describing. At times, it really did seem like nothing ever changed about the world.

"When I found out I was a mutant, it was the happiest day of my life." Ethereal said, "All of a sudden, I could turn into a mist, turn metal and stone into mist, turn air and water into mist, increase the size and power of my mist form, and even my normal form. I had powers so far beyond anyone else I knew, and I was sure that from that point on, life wasn't going to be the same."

"Unfortunately, I discovered that life isn't like a storybook. I thought I was going to wind up going to live somewhere new, attending a mutant school, living in a mutant city somewhere... You know. Something different. But wherever I went, and whatever I tried, things were always the same. I met a few other mutants, but they were all putting too much effort into keeping people from finding out about their powers, because they were afraid they wouldn't be accepted. I think if you X-men were willing to be honest about it, you'd realize that you've been doing the same thing."

"We don't need to brag about our powers, and we don't need to change everything in the world, just because we're mutants." Marvel Girl tried to explain, but Ethereal had heard enough of that kind of reasoning already.

"Magneto understands." Ethereal replied, "When he rescued me from my normal life, he told me that mutants were the herald of a large-scale change in human genetics, and that mutants were change. He said that mutants were destined to cause large changes in the world, just by virtue of what we are. He also said that if mutants would be willing to work together, those changes didn't need to be oppressive or unpleasant. We could discover a way of life that was acceptable to humans and mutants alike; something very different from what we'd had before. I believe that. It's why I follow Magneto. I think he has the secrets to that way of life."

As Ethereal had been talking, however, Marvel Girl had inconspicuously inched closer to her. By the time Ethereal had finished her explanation, Jean was less than a foot from her. It was only then, at almost the end of their one-sided conversation, that Marvel Girl spoke, and she did so as gently as she could.

"You know, I think I want kind of the same things you do. I mean, most of the time, I'm too busy to focus on it, but the truth is, every time somebody turns on the news, I just want it all to go away. Sometimes people don't even have to turn on the news. Sometimes, I just see something in my life; somebody I know who avoids me, because they're not comfortable around me, some system that lets a crook go free, even if they've broken into my house and assaulted my friends. I have a friend who sees people's darkest thoughts, and the relative of a friend, who can't see anything else, and what they see makes them miserable. It's never easy to face troubles like that, especially knowing that they're the same kinds of troubles people have faced for generations, and maybe we shouldn't have to. People lived and died for hundreds of years, trying to exterminate those problems, but now they're dead, and the problems still exist. That's not a status quo worth protecting, and it's not fair. If that's what you meant to say, then I agree with you."

Ethereal looked absolutely stunned by Marvel Girl's words, but she was also suspicious. She hadn't expected Marvel Girl to be so easily swayed, but Jean wasn't finished yet; leaning forward to say one last thing.

"If you're asking me if I'm scared that this generation will wind up just like all those others, the answer's going to be yes. In fact, I don't think I'm more scared of anything than of failing at establishing peaceful coexistence between mutants and the rest of humanity, and that's what the X-men are all about; trying to make peace with everyone. Am I scared of failing at that mission? Yes. I'm terrified. I can't think of anything that would be worse than struggling for my whole life, to try to make something happen, and failing in the end. But there's one thing that I care about even more than changing the world; one thing I could never let happen, because if I do, then I've really failed. I can't let fear paralyze me so much, that I'm willing to kill someone because of it. If you kill someone, it changes you forever, and if you're willing to justify killing, that's the same thing as admitting that peace is impossible, and for me, and for the X-men, that would be the worst failure of all, because we wouldn't just be failing the people who died because of us, or their friends, or families. We'd be failing our cause in life, and we'd be failing ourselves."

"Now, you..." Jean said, continuing to move in closer, until her forehead was almost touching Ethereal's, "You're being shortsighted to think that your part in a murder can be justified, or that it won't change you, or that you won't feel even the least bit guilty when you see the pain and suffering you've helped cause. Of course, a little shortsightedness isn't your fault, and that's forgivable. But the minute you decided that you wanted to put your wishes before the lives of innocent people, that was a type of self-centeredness so deep and wicked, that it can't be allowed to continue. If that's really the best you can do, I'd say it's nap time."

Ethereal hadn't been able to move, speak, or even think straight for half the time that Marvel Girl was talking, but it was only then that she realized why, in that moment when Marvel Girl's thoughts shot into her mind, and she felt herself blacking out.

"Jean..." Logan muttered, amazed and fascinated by what had just happened, "She gonna be...?"

"Relax." Jean replied, a gentle smile forming on her face again, "She'll be fine. She's just asleep. Now we just have to figure out how to get out of here."

That, however, was when Jean realized that there was a loud commotion headed their way, and in moments, Logan recognized the sound of cracking ice and breaking metal, and quickly gave Jean a warning.

"Duck."

* * *

Storm felt her X-force draining away, as she looked at Impervious. Somehow, he didn't really strike her as being all that threatening, or looking all that invulnerable. He wasn't like the Juggernaut, or Fred Dukes, or even Anna. It wasn't as if he were really all that strong. It was just that attacks of various types seemed to gravitate away from him on their own, as if there were some kind of invisible force, bending matter and energy away from his flesh. If that were true, then Ororo still had one way to win, and it wasn't going to be safe or easy.

"Impervious?" Ororo asked, curious, but not threatened, "What are you impervious to? Tell me that. Are you impervious to attacks? Bullets? Punches? Knives? Lightning bolts? Yes, you probably are, but what about poison? What about diseases and viruses? Are you impervious to those too?"

"I don't see what difference that makes." Impervious replied snidely, certain that Storm had nothing that could harm him.

"Then what about suffocation?" Storm asked menacingly, "Are you impervious to that?"

"Wh-What are you talking about?" Impervious asked, but it was too late for anymore questions. At once, Storm sent out one thought, hoping that Jean could pick it up, and understand it.

"Jean," Storm thought, "I'm leaving the asteroid. I'll meet you back at the institute tomorrow. Don't worry about me. I'll be fine."

Storm had been using her powers in a hundred new and different ways over the course of the last few days, but what she was about to do was something that she'd never tried before. Forming her X-force into two bubbles around herself; one overlapping the other, Storm began to spin those bubbles of power faster and faster, until they soaked up all the air in the room, sucking both Hank Mccoy and Impervious into the bubble with her. In a second more, the air currents began to spin even faster, each precisely equal in speed to the other, creating an artificial eye of the storm, and an artificial environment. In short, Storm was using her power over the air, to create an air bubble that could survive on its own in the vacuum of space.

In moments, the bubble moved towards the side of the ship, and the air currents moved faster, putting dents and scrapes in the wall, until at last, a large gash appeared. Faster and faster, the air currents spun, widening the gash in the metal as they formed new ones. Gale force winds could tear apart brick and stone, and that was just what Ororo was doing; using the wind to rip apart the metal. As the hole in the metal widened, and the air bubble was blown right out into empty space, Ororo could tell that Impervious was scared out of his mind. He was vulnerable to suffocation. Ororo was sure of it by that point.

"Do you give up?" Ororo asked, "You know, I could just kick you right now, and send you flying off into space. Suffocation is a hard way to go, I'm told."

"Stop! Don't!" Impervious exclaimed, waving both hands toward Ororo, as she supported all three of them inside that bubble, "Please, just put me back, and I swear I won't hurt you, or any of your friends. I promise."

"Put you back where?" Storm asked, "In there?"

As she asked that question, Storm gestured towards the empty chamber of the asteroid that they'd just broken out of. By that point, it was obvious that the chamber no longer had any protection from the harsh lack of atmosphere in outer space. Impervious shuddered at the thought of being put back in that chamber, only to be blown right back out into space again. He was very scared by that point; probably more than he'd ever been in his life. Death was less than three yards away on every side.

"No!" Impervious exclaimed in a sudden panic, "Don't put me back in there. Just... just take me someplace safe. Please. You... you can even take me back to Earth, if you have to."

"Suit yourself." Storm replied, much to her captive's relief, and Hank's wonder and amazement. The bubble of atmosphere continued to whirl around them, as the three mutants descended towards the Earth, their part in the battle with Magneto finished.

* * *

Jean had gotten Ororo's message midway through her discussion with Ethereal, but hadn't had any time to think about it until she'd met up with the other X-men again. Thanks to Bobby using his freezing powers to break through barrier after barrier, everyone except Storm, Hank, Nightcrawler, and Colossus were back together pretty soon. As soon as that happened, Cyclops knew what they had to do next, and he spoke up quickly, with growing confidence. Logan had been right. It was his calling to be the voice of the X-men. It was his duty to be a hero.

"I'll bet Nightcrawler got out of here by teleporting, and took Colossus with him." Cyclops deduced, "Wolverine, can you sniff out the brimstone trail from his teleportation?"

"Yup." Logan replied with a grin, "The elf's this way."

* * *

The moment that Nightcrawler fell to the floor with a deep bruise in the side of his head, Magneto felt more than a little worried. Colossus had been a simple foe to beat, since all of his powers involved transforming himself into living metal, which made him, if anything, weaker against Magneto. Nightcrawler had taken a little longer to bring down, because of the speed at which he could teleport, but in a whole room that was essentially a weapon of Magneto, and without any weapons of his own, that could hurt his enemy, Nightcrawler's defeat had only been a matter of time.

Having dealt with his immediate obstacles, Magneto turned back to the security cameras that had been keeping track of the intruders, and was horrified by the sight. Pyro, Ethereal, Charge, Toad... All of them were out cold. Magneto couldn't see Tick, Quicksilver or Impervious anywhere. Had they betrayed him? He'd been expecting Guardian to be gone by that point, but not those three. It didn't take Magneto more than a moment to realize that things had gone very badly for him that day. The X-men were skilled and powerful, and circumstances had conspired against him. He wasn't even certain how many of his Allies he could even afford to trust anymore. It had been a rotten day, and in many ways, the X-men had already won. He knew that by himself, he couldn't defeat them all. He'd tried that before, and it hadn't worked, but the X-men had also never truly defeated him, and he wasn't about to let that change. The X-men had won the battle for Asteroid M, but, Magneto knew, the war was only beginning.

At once, Magneto's powers traveled out into the various sections and rooms of the asteroid, and began to pull the entire base apart, sealing the rooms that contained the remaining Allies of Magneto, and yanking them out into space. Just a moment later, he'd walked to the other side of the guidance chamber, and opened another small room, which functioned as his escape pod. From that point on, Asteroid M wouldn't have his guidance, and it wouldn't be able to remain in a stable orbit for very long. The chances that it was going to collide with a populated area of the world when it finally crashed to Earth were pretty good. It was with those thoughts that Magneto entered his escape pod, and fled Asteroid M, flying away from that place, and dragging the four sealed chambers containing the unconscious Allies with him. The X-men still had an awful lot to worry about.

* * *

"Nightcrawler!" Cyclops exclaimed, running up to Kurt, who lay unconscious on the floor of the guidance chamber. He was followed into the chamber, shortly afterward, by the other X-men, but with a little help from Bobby and Jean, both Nightcrawler and Colossus were awake in seconds.

"Where's Magneto?" Scott asked, as Nightcrawler scrambled to his feet, but Kurt wasn't sure himself.

"It seems as if he escaped when he realized that you had the upper hand." Kurt noticed, "Without him, however, I do not think an asteroid like this one can maintain its orbit."

"So you're saying this whole asteroid is gonna come crashing down to Earth." Logan muttered in frustration.

"No." Nightcrawler replied, "We will prevent that."

"What's your plan?" Scott asked, although his words seemed to surprise Kurt.

"I have made a few plans," Kurt replied quickly, "but you are the voice of the X-men. I would hear your plan first."

"Magneto's meteorites take hours before they enter the atmosphere, and he used the machines in this room to communicate with Earth." Cyclops observed after spending just a few moments thinking about it carefully, "Jean, Bobby; I want you to do the best you can to slow down this meteor; steam jets, telekinesis... whatever else you can think of. Logan, have you ever seen technology like this?"

"Not exactly." Logan admitted quickly, "I'd feel better if Hank was here, but if you want me to figure out how Magneto sent messages to Earth, I could give it my best shot."

Cyclops wasn't sure how he'd suddenly risen to command of the X-men, but for whatever reason, they were all listening to his plan; even Logan. Maybe they just thought his plan was the best one available, or maybe, as Kurt had said, Scott's position as the X-men's "public voice" really did make him important in some way. Such a short time ago, Scott Summers had been so full of self-doubts, and yet, suddenly, he was leading them all, and he knew in his heart that it was right.

* * *

Less than half an hour later, a powerful, if low-definition broadcast interrupted all radio and television signals on planet Earth, as Magneto's machines did their work, and the face and voice that came through those broadcasts was one that people had started to recognize as a voice of hope.

"Attention. I don't know how to transmit to only a few people, so everyone's going to hear this broadcast. This is Cyclops of the X-men. My teammates and I have succeeded in seizing control of Magneto's asteroid base. There won't be any more meteor attacks if we have anything to say about it."

People all around the world breathed a collective sigh of relief at those words, but Scott wasn't finished.

"Unfortunately, it seems that Magneto's power was the only thing holding this asteroid in orbit. Without him, this base will fall to Earth in a matter of hours. We can use our powers to slow its descent, but we can't stop it alone. Rather than pretend we have things under control, we decided to contact the people whose help we need most. We have no idea where this asteroid will fall after it enters Earth's atmosphere, but the risk that it might collide with a populated area is too great. That's why we've decided to call for help from the Avengers, and anyone else powerful enough to stop a falling asteroid. Please, help us stop this threat. Help us save those people."

* * *

"Well, it's bound to cause a panic, but if that don't get their attention, nothing will." Logan said, as the transmission ended.

"Yeah." Cyclops replied sadly. Truthfully, he wasn't sure the Avengers would be able to make it to their location without knowing where the asteroid was headed, precisely, but the X-men had to buy as much time as they could, and there was one more way to do that.

Removing his visor, and closing his eyes tightly, Scott said "Logan, I want you to slice a four-inch gash, right through the viewing window."

* * *

In spite of the combined efforts of Jean and Bobby, the asteroid drew closer and closer to planet Earth, until finally, it started to enter the Earth's atmosphere, picking up up speed as it went. At that point, Bobby shifted most of his power towards cooling down the outside of the asteroid, so that Scott could safely put his eyes against the visor that he'd recently wedged into the tiny slit that Logan had made in the viewing window of Magneto's guidance chamber. Then, Scott opened his eyes, looked towards the nearest large body of water, and opened the visor as well.

The constant, unrelenting stream of power that emerged from Scott's eyes just a moment later, forcing its way downward into the nearest ocean from the plunging asteroid had an important purpose. In fact, it had more than one purpose. It was intended to both provide a counterforce for the asteroid's continuing downward plunge, and also to get people's attention with the bright, shining light it projected. Fortunately, in moments, it had gotten the attention of just the right people.

As he fired, Scott heard a voice in his thoughts; one he'd never heard before; the voice of a young man, but determined, and with an extremely strong will.

"Continue to fire that beam weapon of yours, Cyclops. We will do the rest."

In just a moment, Scott saw small machines spreading out around him, presumably to attach themselves to the asteroid, and then suddenly, he saw something else happening down below. Several people were flying towards the asteroid with incredible speed, and Scott recognized them all from news footage. Black Bolt, Iron Man, the Human Torch, Doctor Strange, the Submariner, and there was one more among them as well; one whose very presence sent surprise and worry through Scott's mind. Doctor Doom.

Soon, each of the flying people took up their positions at various points underneath the asteroid. Doom seemed to be using his machines to reduce the total momentum and weight of the asteroid somehow, while Namor, Iron Man, and Black Bolt grabbed the asteroid itself, and the Human Torch seemed to be trying to draw pockets of lava out of the bottom of the massive meteor, by melting the inside of it, then causing it to explode downward. Through careful manipulation of heat, the Torch soon managed to slow the descent of the asteroid, and the only trade-off, was that thick ash was starting to fill the air. It had been a hard operation to pull off, without Miss Marvel, but they were making it work. Soon, they'd maneuvered the asteroid into position over the top of a nearby mountain, where the final stage of their plan waited.

Jennifer Walters rubbed her hands together, as she looked up at the large asteroid headed in her direction. Three towns were built at the base of the mountain she was standing on, so a lot was riding on her muscles. If she wasn't strong enough to catch what was basically a falling mountain, lots of innocent people were going to die, including her. For the first time since she'd joined the Avengers, it was really all on her shoulders.

She-Hulk braced her feet against the mountainside as best she could, and held up both hands over her head, as the asteroid got closer and closer. Then, with one final crash, it came down on top of her, and Jennifer Walters had never felt such a powerful, crushing weight before. She wasn't completely certain that she could endure such crushing pressure, but she knew that she had to do everything she could, and it was only then that Jennifer remembered the source of her greatest strength, and started letting her fury leak out; the fury she felt over her weakness, and over what Magneto had set in motion. From that fury, there came a flood of strength, equal to the extent of her anger, and in just a moment more, Jennifer Walters; the She-Hulk straightened up, the massive asteroid on her back feeling as light as a feather.

* * *

Nearly a week after the battle with Magneto, Kurt Wagner sat in his room, reading. He'd fully recovered from the tension and worry that had surrounded the whole experience, but not the sorrow over what Magneto had chosen to do with his life, and the way that no one and nothing had really been able to change his mind. It was a tragic situation, and Magneto was a tragic man. It may, perhaps, have been to distract himself from that tragedy, that Kurt had chosen to seclude himself for his more recent training sessions, and to do more reading in his spare time. Kurt had become something of a solitary figure at the institute, because as good a person, and as good a mutant as he was, he simply had no talent for the art of casual conversation. His words were always meaningful, and his questions deep and penetrating. Many of the other students found him difficult to talk to, for those reasons alone. However, what Kurt didn't realize, was that he was about to have the chance to talk to someone extremely famous; someone who got the spotlight even more than Cyclops did. He was going to have that conversation whether he was ready for it or not.

There was a knock at Kurt's window as he read, drawing his attention to the glass pane, and to the figure standing in mid-air, outside of that window. In amazement, Kurt put down the book and opened the window, to find himself looking out at one of the most famous and respected people alive; Miss Marvel. She seemed to be trying to smile, but was obviously having a hard time with that. It was an expression that Kurt was accustomed to seeing.

"Miss Marvel?" Kurt asked in surprise, "Is something wrong?"

"Maybe." Miss Marvel replied. It was the first time she and Kurt had met in person, but she recognized him at once, "Can I call you Nightcrawler?"

"Yes." Kurt replied, "I suppose it is difficult to keep up a secret identity, when you look as unusual as I do."

"For my part, I won't ask you for your real name." Miss Marvel said, "But I saw you on the news, and you seemed like the only kind of person I could think to contact about something like this."

Kurt stepped back, away from the window, so that Miss Marvel could float in through it horizontally. She then closed it, and drew the blinds down once she was inside.

"Do you know anything about demonic possession?" Miss Marvel tried to ask delicately, although the subject was hardly a delicate one.

"Miss Marvel," Kurt said, as gently as he could, "I am a mutant, not a daemon."

"Then you don't know any more than I do." Miss Marvel noted sadly, looking away.

"I only know what the church teaches on the subject." Nightcrawler replied, "Daemons all serve Satan in their own way, and sometimes find a way to influence someone so much, and for so long, that in time, the person loses control of their own body almost completely. There are exorcism rituals that can be performed by priests, using holy oils if a person is found to be possessed, but true possessions are extremely rare, are they not?"

"Then you do believe in possessions." Miss Marvel confirmed.

"As a man of faith, I feel I should." Nightcrawler replied, "Though fortunately, I've yet to witness one in person."

"What about stories about... about people possessed... after they died?" Miss Marvel asked tentatively, losing her composure bit by bit, as she spoke.

"Officially, the church takes no position on the existence or lack thereof of the undead."

Miss Marvel looked away again, then back towards Nightcrawler sadly when he said that.

"Do you remember how I went to Chicago almost a week ago, to try to stop the third meteorite?" Miss Marvel asked.

Kurt nodded quickly, replying "You did very well. That tornado was a brilliant idea. It..."

"I didn't create the tornado that saved Chicago from that meteor." Miss Marvel confessed.

"What?" Kurt asked, confused, "But everyone thinks that you did. What... What really happened?"

"I was headed towards the meteorite, but I was still almost a mile away, when the tornado kicked up around it in mid-air."

"But I don't understand." Kurt said, "You're not suggesting that the tornado was created by..."

"Well, I was confused when I saw the tornado." Miss Marvel replied, "I thought that maybe it was a sign that Thor was back, or something like that, but then, when I got a little closer to the edge of the storm, I saw somebody standing right next to it, two hundred feet in the air, just standing there, like gravity meant nothing. I flew towards him, to try to find out who he was, but it looked like he noticed me, because before I could get a good look at his face, he waved to me, and then his whole body looked like it was separating into a hundred smaller pieces, and all of those pieces headed right for me. In just a few seconds, I was surrounded by a cloud of black bats. They were very big for bats, and they had long wings and glittering fangs. Those bats flew right past me, and then all of them flew in different directions, and the next thing I knew, the meteorite had plunged into the lake, and the person responsible was gone. Nightcrawler, tell me the truth. Do you think it's possible that what I saw... was a vampire?"

Nightcrawler, however, couldn't give an immediate reply to that. It was more than he could say.

* * *

End

* * *

So the Magneto Saga comes to a close, and the X-men are stronger and more united than ever, but new dangers and old foes wait on the horizon, and it looks like the X-men will have to work for their victories in the future. One thing's for sure, though. The X-men are off to a pretty good start, and it looks like they may just have what it takes to prevail, if they persevere. Anyway, the X-men have stopped Magneto's first plan, and now they're getting some of the respect and recognition they deserve for that. Welcome to the Marvel Universe Neo.

Of course, that doesn't mean their lives will be easy from here on out. The X-men still have a lot of dangers to face, and a lot of fears to overcome. The ending of the story is never certain, but you can bet there'll be some excitement in the future, and many challenges for them to face. Our next saga begins next month, as an old enemy returns to the Xavier institute, apparently interested in the path they've chosen, and although the X-men are powerful in fighting with physical enemies, they may have come upon an enemy they can't outfight, when someone tries to claim ownership of the entire Xavier Institute.

I hope you'll be there with me. Thank you and good night.

-Bra1n1ac-


	23. X Men 7: No Other Choice

X-Men Neo

Issue 7

"No Other Choice"

* * *

Miss Emma Frost smiled as she moved among the members of the exclusive club to which she belonged. She greeted one person, accepted greetings from another, returned greetings to a third, and so forth. Gatherings of the Hellfire Club were held every single month, whether any business needed to be resolved or not. As it happened, Emma had very little business to tend to. She only had three people that she wanted to talk to for business reasons that night, and all of them had arranged meetings with her already, meaning that until the time came for those meetings, Emma's only real purpose at that gathering was to mingle, and make sure everyone else was having a good time. For that job, no one better could have been selected.

Emma Frost was stunningly beautiful. Her short, blond hair and smooth skin outlined her near-perfect facial features and stunning figure to a T, and she made no attempt to disguise either one. Very rarely had Emma Frost been known to wear an outfit that left much to the imagination, and in addition, she was also a shameless flirt. Emma enunciated every one of her words carefully, with the full intent of yanking on the strongest emotions of lust out of every man she saw, and the strongest feelings of jealousy in every female. Because of that, her presence in the Hellfire Club was either a pleasant addition, or a strong irritant to each of its members. However, she did tend to have a calming, pacifying effect when she got close to people, even if they'd been intensely jealous of her, or lusting after her a moment before. Only a few people in the world were really certain of why that was.

Emma Frost was more than just a wealthy and beautiful woman of business. She was also a mutant with the power to read thoughts, and project thoughts and feelings into the minds of others. People tended to obey their feelings so much, however, that Emma found herself in almost complete control of whoever she focused her attention on most of the time. She loved taunting women, teasing men, then using her powers to guide tensions back to where they belonged. It had probably torn several famous relationships to shreds already, but to her, it was fun.

In her whole life, Emma Frost had only met a few people who she couldn't have fun with in that manner, but she preferred to avoid them whenever possible. That night, with over an hour to go before the first of her scheduled business meetings, Emma was planning to have a whole lot of fun. The Hellfire Club was perhaps the most elite club in the entire world. It was a badge of status and a symbol of wealth to be a member. No one ever became a member without being a millionaire several times over, and for the most part, it was considered an easy way for members of high society to meet, talk, and make new business deals, or to just have fun in their off hours. Very few places could yield connections quite as powerful as those found in the Hellfire Club.

That night, the club meeting was being held in a very fancy hotel. The whole thing had been rented out for the event, which had cost a fortune, but the club had that kind of money, and plenty more to spare. Priceless-looking vases lined alcoves in the walls of the lobby, and a large chandelier hung right overhead, as Emma headed up the thick, marble staircase, away from the club members on the lower levels. She'd already had some fun with the people down below, and she was eager for...

Emma Frost stopped in her tracks, the moment that she reached the top of the stairs. There was a man standing at the top of those stairs; a man who Emma didn't like. He was friendly enough, and he was certainly one of the club's wealthiest members, but no matter what Emma tried, she couldn't seem to penetrate his thoughts. He looked as if he were very much in the prime of his life; somewhere between thirty and thirty-five, with dark hair, a mustache, and a pair of dull red eyes that struck Emma as being very unusual. They were almost brown, but not quite; closer to the color of blood.

The man's name was Vincent Edison, and for some reason, he always looked just a little taller up close. Emma dared to hope, for a moment, that he might be content to speak with the other club members, or might be in the midst of some difficult business negotiations, but when she saw him waving to her from across the room, she nearly cursed. He'd seen her, and it would only be a matter of time before he found his way to her, and seized upon the opportunity to speak with her, since that was clearly what he wanted. Emma didn't know what else Edison wanted from her, and she had no desire to find out, but she knew that there was no escaping him. She had to face whatever he wanted to talk to her about, and hope that it didn't spoil the evening for her too much.

"Miss Frost." Edison said with a broad smile, as he walked up to her just a few seconds later, "I don't mind telling you, I feel a little slighted."

"There are other people to talk to." Emma suggested unhelpfully.

"Naturally." Edison replied, "However, I want answers, and you're the only one I'm certain has them. I feel that we should talk about this outside for a moment."

"It's freezing out." Emma objected, a little angrily, "If you want to wait until after the gathering, we can..."

That, however, was when Edison interrupted Emma, and in his face, there was something that Emma couldn't understand; something that commanded respect and obedience, no matter how much she wanted to refuse.

"I feel..." Vincent repeated, "that we should talk about this outside for a moment."

His tone of voice hadn't really been that different when he'd repeated those words, but something in them, or in him, was seizing Emma's very will out from under her. It wasn't a psychic attack. She knew what those felt like, and how to defend herself from them. What was happening to her went beyond mutant powers. It was overwhelming, emotional, terrifying, and even a little thrilling. Emma Frost was losing control of herself. If she hadn't been so afraid, she might have been delighted that an annoyance like Edison had suddenly raised the adventure and fun of his presence to a whole new level.

In only a minute or so, Edison had left the building, walking down the stairs, through the crowd of wealthy, elite businesspeople, actors and stars, and stepping out the front door. In spite of herself, Emma Frost couldn't do anything but follow him. More than one person greeted her, and yet, she couldn't respond. All she could do was head for that door; following Edison outside into the cold weather of the outside world.

Edison wasn't wearing a heavy coat, or anything else that should have been sufficient to keep him warm, but for some reason, he didn't seem to mind the frigid temperatures of the late evening just outside of that hotel. Of course, Emma was dressed in even less, so her reaction to the cold made up for his lack thereof.

"Sorry about that, Miss Frost." Edison said with a toothy smile, "I don't mean to make you uncomfortable, but as I said, I have to have answers from somebody. You seemed the most likely to provide them. My family has been in the Hellfire Club for generations, and we were led to believe that it was the most elite group than anyone could be part of. Imagine my surprise, therefore, to overhear, just tonight, that there is an inner circle, within the Hellfire Club; a secret cabal operating behind the scenes, with the intent of gathering great power for themselves through the club, and through their own financial influence. As I said, I feel very much slighted, Miss Frost. If there is such a secret inner circle, why was I not invited to join?"

Emma Frost was more afraid than ever as he asked her that question. She wanted to keep her mouth shut; to refuse to answer him, or at least to lie to him, but a moment later, she replied in a voice that sounded lifeless and empty.

"No one is ever invited to join the inner circle. They must find out about it on their own."

"Then you admit that this group exists." Vincent clarified, "Does the inner circle of the Hellfire Club truly exist, Miss Frost?"

"Yes."

Emma cursed in the deep, dark recesses of her mind. More than once, she'd used her powers to erase memories from others, and whatever Edison had done to her was circumventing all of that control she'd once had over human thought. How, she wondered, was he doing it? Drugs? Pheromones? Some kind of hypersonic wave, intended to influence her with the power of suggestion? However Edison had managed to gain control over her, it wasn't like anything that Emma had ever encountered before.

"Well, I'm glad to have that cleared up." Edison replied with a smile, "Now, I'd like to join. What do I need to do?"

* * *

Less than an hour later, Edison found himself being led into one of the back rooms of the hotel, which was clearly intended as a dining room. Like the rest of the hotel, it had been rented out for the night, but it had also been closed off; most likely by the inner circle. Also, although Edison could see the spots on the floor, where a table and chairs had once taken up residence, all of the furniture in that room had been moved elsewhere, and there were no windows there either. In modern buildings, most rooms had windows.

"So now what?" Edison asked.

"I've signaled the others. They should arrive shortly." Emma Frost replied with no emotion in her voice at all.

"Oh." Edison remarked with a smile, "When they arrive, they'll begin my test, or initiation, won't they?"

"Yes." Emma responded again.

"Good." Edison said, still smiling, "In that case, I no longer require your assistance."

Suddenly, in that moment, Emma Frost felt full control returning to her, and a very strong desire to murder Edison growing with every second inside of her. However he'd managed to take control of her, Edison had just released her, and Emma Frost had every intention of making certain that he came to regret his decision.

Quickly, Emma tried to read Edison's thoughts again, project some kind of influence onto him, or in some way make him uncomfortable, but the more she tried to use her powers against him, the plainer it became that they weren't working. Fear welled up inside of Miss Frost, when she realized that. She hadn't met with resistance in her attacks, or come up against some kind of sneaky psychic giant, who was trying to fool her. She knew what both of those felt like as well. She just couldn't seem to make her powers work against Edison. It wasn't like he was stronger than her; it was more as if he wasn't even there at all.

As fast as she could, Emma looked around for something; anything to use as a weapon. However, the lack of furniture in that room also meant that there wasn't anything to take hold of. If nothing else, Edison didn't seem to have noticed the train of thought running through Emma's head. If he had any kind of genuine psychic powers, they must not have been as easy to use as hers.

In seconds, the doors on one end of the room burst open, and in came four men, each one dressed in very expensive-looking clothes. The first was tall, and broad at the shoulders; more so than Edison, in fact. He had long, brown hair, and large sideburns that ran down to the level of his mouth. The second was a somewhat portly man with black hair and a thick mustache. The third looked very young; clearly an heir of some kind, and he had long, blond hair, and a devilish look in his eyes. The last was another tall man who, despite appearing relatively young in every other respect; no more than thirty, Edison judged, had a shade of gray throughout his otherwise-brown hair. His eyebrows were thick, and conveyed quite a bit of emotion. The moment that he saw Edison, in fact, it became clear that he was worried. The two, after all, had met before.

"What is this?" the man with the long sideburns demanded, as soon as the doors had closed behind those four new arrivals. Clearly, he was something of a ringleader for the group.

"Well, as I explained to Miss Frost..." Edison began, but the large man held up one hand, signaling for silence.

"Emma is the one I want answers from, not you." the man with the sideburns clarified rather rudely, then turning on the blond-haired psychic, he demanded, "There weren't to be any trials held tonight. I thought I made that perfectly clear. We're too close to the next stage of our goal."

"I didn't have any choice." Emma objected, looking scared and helpless again.

"What do you mean, you didn't have any choice?" the man with the sideburns asked angrily, "Just wipe his mind, and be done with it!"

"I can't!" Emma shouted back, "I've been trying this whole time, but I just can't!"

At that point, the man with the sideburns started to calm down a little, turning to face Edison once again. To the man's surprise, Edison looked truly shocked, as if he'd never suspected that Emma Frost had psychic powers of any sort. It was strange, and it didn't make sense, but it was all that the taller man needed to see. The man with the sideburns would want answers after seeing that.

Hesitantly, cautiously, the tall man approached Edison, and held out his hand, though with a guarded look in his face, as if, at any moment, he was about to use that hand to attack.

"Sebastian Shaw." the tall man said, introducing himself.

"Vincent Edison." Edison replied, shaking Shaw's hand firmly, though he volunteered no further words, waiting for Shaw to ask his first question.

It took several seconds before Shaw was actually ready to do so, though it seemed less like he was afraid, and more as if he were trying to suppress a deep irritation.

"So what are you doing here?" Shaw asked, "Why bother us?"

"I've been a member of this club for rather a long time," Vincent replied, "so naturally, I thought that I'd be let in on the inner workings of it. This new inner circle seems to have left me out, though as Miss Frost has already explained to me, that's standard procedure for you. I won't take offense, since that's the case, nor will I ask you to bend the Hellfire Club's rules on my behalf. In fact, I came here to do whatever's necessary to join your inner circle."

Shaw grinned cruelly when Edison said that. He seemed to be very pleased by the idea of Edison trying to join the inner circle, for some reason.

"According to Emma," Shaw said a moment later, "You're immune to psychic manipulation. That makes you a security risk, and because we can't control your thoughts, I'm afraid there's a very real possibility that you might get killed tonight."

"Maybe not as real a possibility as you think." Edison replied defensively, "Others have tried to kill me in the past, and though they flattered themselves with thoughts of victory, I was always the one who survived, in the end."

"Then you should have no trouble joining the inner circle." Shaw said with an arrogant shrug, as he started to remove his jacket, "You see, to even be a member of the Hellfire Club, one needs to prove their wealth. To learn of the existence of the inner circle proves that one has cunning. However, to join the inner circle, you must prove your physical power as well. With or without using weapons, your test is this; defeat me in single combat. If you can do that, you're in."

"Really?" Edison asked, obviously astonished, "After all this time of playing my hand through intermediaries and checks, it comes down to a mere physical fight? Well, I can assure you that I won't disappoint, Mister Shaw."

Shaw was still grinning, as he slowly advanced towards Edison, both fists up. After only a moment of waiting in vain for Edison to make the first move, Shaw leapt forward, driving one fist directly towards Edison's face. Edison didn't move a muscle, and no one there was sure why. Perhaps it was simple arrogance, or maybe he was frozen in fear, but the very moment that Shaw slugged him in the face, Edison was knocked backwards into the opposite wall; nearly fourteen feet behind him. The gathering outside was so loud, that Edison's impact with the wall couldn't possibly have drawn any outside attention, and Shaw looked confident and pleased with himself. An ordinary man would probably have been killed by that punch alone.

However, as Shaw watched in astonishment, Edison slowly rose to his feet, almost without any effort at all. His face did seem to be scraped up a little, but those scrapes were rapidly healing themselves, and he clearly hadn't been killed.

"Nice try, Mister Shaw," Edison said, "but that isn't the way to kill me."

With a look of rage finally penetrating his formerly-arrogant expression, Shaw leapt to the attack again, delivering punch after punch towards Edison, who made no real attempt to block them, though he did managed to dodge most of them with surprising speed. A few made contact with his face, arms, and stomach, but seemed to do no damage at all. Finally, Shaw let up. Edison was sitting there, on the floor, looking sad, even though it was obvious that his injuries weren't going to last for more than a few seconds.

"Why are you stopping?" Shaw demanded.

"Tell me the truth, Mister Shaw." Edison said, "Are these all the powers that you possess? Your strength and your endurance, I mean? They're great powers, and you have a right to be proud of them. In fact, your physical strength substantially exceeds my own. However, in spite of that, if your strength is your only power, you no longer have any chance against me without some kind of weapon."

"Then why stop fighting?" Shaw asked derisively, "You know I won't surrender just on your word."

"No." Edison replied, getting quickly to his feet, as the last of his wounds vanished, "I suppose not. Let's get this over with, then."

Quickly, Shaw advanced again, lashing out with his left fist, but when his fist was only a few inches from Edison's face, something happened that Shaw had never expected. Vincent Edison seemed to have disappeared.

"Shaw!" Emma Frost exclaimed, "Behind you!"

In response, Shaw spun around, but it was too late. Edison had gotten the drop on him with a burst of unearthly speed, and in a second, his hand had come down over Shaw's mouth, and the tall man started to feel a painful stinging in his mouth and nose. He wrenched himself loose from Edison's grasp, and collapsed to the floor, his insides feeling like they were tearing themselves apart, as he coughed some kind of green smoke into the air around him. Edison, for his part, seemed satisfied, and a jet of similar green mist that had been coming from his hand simply disappeared.

"Now I'm interested." the blond haired man named Don Pierce said from nearby, "Nobody's ever beat Shaw like that before."

"Then I take it that I'm in." Edison assumed, as Shaw lost consciousness on the floor nearby.

Emma Frost was horrified again, but not in the same way as before. Whether she liked it or not, Edison was going to be a member of the inner circle from then on, and if they were going to share their secret plans with him, there were things that she had to know.

* * *

Later that evening, just as Edison was about to leave, Emma rushed up to him with another look of fury in her eyes. She was understandably indignant, but at the same time, she was looking for something from him.

"Before you go anywhere," Emma said angrily, "I want you to tell me how you controlled me tonight."

Edison's face fell. He clearly knew that Emma wouldn't believe him, not that he had any problem with revealing the truth to a fellow member of the inner circle.

"If I answer that question, you'll never be willing to believe it." Edison replied, "I know your kind, Miss Frost; so mired in lies, and comforting self-deceptions, that you give yourself totally to the whims of petty desires. Such is the face of evil. Pure evil is a rare thing in this world, however. Most people are simply being deluded, and allowing themselves to be weakened morally. It's that moral weakness that I preyed on tonight, though I'm afraid that my influence would be less effective against members of my own sex."

"That's not an answer." Emma Frost insisted angrily.

"Of course it is." Edison replied, "It's just not the answer that you want to hear. Whether you know it or not, Miss Frost, I would have had no control over you tonight, if you'd been a faithful nun, or an innocent student of science, or even a firm believer in the will of God. Moral weakness may seem like a strength to some, but I assure you; it weakened you tonight."

Then Edison just left by the front doors, and when Emma Frost rushed outside after him, he was nowhere to be found.

* * *

Bobby Drake had been having a pretty rough day. It wasn't just the classes, or the fact that Magneto was still out there somewhere. There were other problems in Bobby's life. For one thing, there was a new arrival in the mansion, who was only a year or so younger than him, and although he'd sort of been trying to get her attention, she treated him like he didn't exist. Bobby hadn't been expecting any kind of romance immediately, but he definitely deserved better than to be snubbed all the time by... Well, by anyone really.

Those thoughts gnawed at Bobby as he walked through the halls of the mansion. It had been a while since he'd done one of his classic practical jokes, and he had to wonder if maybe it was time for another one, like in the good old days, but no. He could play small pranks on his fellow x-men, but large-scale antics had always gotten him in trouble, and he didn't want to receive another scolding from Sheila, like he had almost two years before. Those years, Bobby thought, had to mean something. Bobby wasn't exactly losing his enthusiasm for practical jokes or clownish behavior, but he was learning how to reserve that behavior for when it would be well-received, and of course, there were times like that. Just a week before, he'd frozen the drinks of everyone at the breakfast table. They seemed to have found it moderately annoying, but his joke hadn't gotten him in trouble, which was what it meant for a practical joke to be received well.

Maybe, Bobby thought, any kind of person could do the right thing, and also have a good time. Bobby wasn't really hurting anyone with his antics anymore, which may have made it easier for him to be accepted as a person, and of course, Bobby's help against Magneto had made things a lot easier for the X-men. It was a thought that didn't make him feel as bad as the new student's lousy behavior, so that was where he dropped his train of thought, leaving it where it was, so that he could continue facing the problems of his life.

However, despite the fact that he'd been in battle numerous times up to that point, Bobby Drake rarely considered that there are worse problems in the world than the behavior of one person, or a few people. Unfortunately, the lessons of the past have a nasty habit of repeating themselves, when people don't hear them the first time.

As Bobby walked through the halls of the mansion, just past the front doors, the doorbell rang once. For a moment, he looked around, but nobody else was that close to the front door, despite the fact that it was a time between classes. He didn't usually think of himself as much of a diplomat, so answering the institute door wasn't one of the responsibilities that he typically took upon himself. Nevertheless, Scott and Jean weren't around, or for that matter, Ororo. Even Piotr or Kurt would have done a better job that him, he thought, but they were busy elsewhere. In fact, none of the many students at the institute were nearby, and although most were around Bobby's age, none of them could save him from that responsibility. The task of greeting whoever was on the other side of that door had fallen to Bobby Drake.

Hesitating for only a second, Bobby walked up to the front doors, and swung the left door open, then immediately wished that he hadn't. The person on the other side was someone that he recognized, and had a great reason to fear.

Quickly, Bobby sent a message to Professor Xavier with his thoughts, warning him of the danger, complete with a mental image of the person that Bobby was looking at, and in seconds, he heard the gratifying psychic reply.

"X-Men! To the front doors immediately. Anna's returned."

As soon as Bobby heard that message, he fired a stream of icy particles out at Anna, encasing her almost entirely in ice. However, just a moment later, she seemed to have disappeared, and there was a small, faerie-shaped person flying around near Bobby's face.

Iceman had never seen Anna use the Wasp's powers before, so he'd completely forgotten that she even had them. However, he wasn't about to give up. Quickly, an icy armor rose up all over his body, and he started firing off ice shards at the small, flying enemy. In just seconds, however, she'd swept forward through the air, returning to normal size the moment that she was through the door, and grabbing Bobby by one arm. As soon as she did that, a sheet of ice started to climb up her arm from where she was holding Iceman, but she ignored it, and just looked at him blankly. Something in that gaze struck Bobby Drake as signifying worry, despite the fact that she clearly wasn't afraid of him, so for a moment, he stopped his attack, and she, in turn, released his arm, shattering the ice that had been crawling along hers in the process.

"Ah didn't come heah to fight you." Anna said sadly, "Not today."

"Then what do you want?" Bobby asked. He was probably just being gullible, but something about Anna's worried expression made him want to believe her. She didn't really look like she was being threatening. In fact, she looked more like Betsy Braddock had, when she'd first arrived at the institute; wary and untrusting, but also scared that at any moment, her powers might start to tear her apart.

However, just as Anna was opening her mouth, to reply to Bobby's question, a beam of bright red force tore through the air in between her left ear and her head, shattering a small, metal device that had been resting there. Just a moment after that, Anna found herself falling into endless darkness.

* * *

Anna had no real way to tell how long she'd been out cold, but when she woke, it was only gradually. She was conscious of the things she was seeing in front of her, but still too tired to actually process much information, or even move an inch. In fact, she felt like she might just go right back to sleep at any moment, and yet, she was continuing to wake up gradually; her energy returning to her bit by bit. She felt like she'd just been drowned in a vat of molten tar, then wrenched back to life. It wasn't a pleasant sensation, to say the least.

For a short while, in fact, Anna could barely do or say anything. She knew that she was in some kind of glass, or glass-like chamber, filled with a strange, yellowish mist. The mist surrounded her, though it didn't make it that much harder to see, and Anna suspected that the mist was responsible for her recent exhaustion. Just outside of the glass enclosure, she could see Professor Xavier in his wheelchair, with a short, hairy man standing next to him; that "Logan" person. They were looking at her curiously, and obviously, neither one was happy to have her there.

Through the glass of her enclosure, Anna heard the professor speaking to her. It wasn't a telepathic message, however. He was speaking to her aloud, and he sounded pretty worried as he did so. It was possible that even surrounded by that mist-like substance, and feeling about ready to collapse at any time, Xavier still considered Anna something of a threat.

"Why did you come back here, Anna?" Xavier asked.

"Whah don't you just yank that tidbit out of mah brain?" Anna asked a little indignantly, in spite of her exhaustion.

"Because I don't use my powers to invade the privacy of others." Xavier replied.

"But you ain't above putting a girl in a cage, and gassing her." Anna noticed again.

"Tell me why you came here." Xavier repeated testily, "Convince me, as you did Iceman, and I may think of letting you out."

"The kid with the ice?" Anna asked, impressed that her words had had such an impact on the X-man she'd met at the front doors, "Ah just told him that ah didn't come heah to fight."

"He seemed quite convinced that you were telling the truth." Xavier said.

"Well, okay." Anna replied with something that looked a little like a tired smirk, "So if ah'm telling the truth, it's a truce for now, and if ah'm not telling the truth, it's not a truce."

For a moment, Xavier's stern expression turned to one of confusion, then surprise, then simple irritation. He hadn't been expecting her to crack a logic joke like that one, but then, she did have the charm of Janet Van Dyne, and the intellect of Henry Pym integrated permanently into her. Ultimately, Xavier chose not to make any attempt to laugh at her joke. He was still afraid that she might be playing some game with him. After all, it hadn't been that long ago that she'd been trying to absorb him as well, and she'd basically only failed because she'd wanted to. Around someone like Anna, Xavier knew that he had to be cautious.

"If you didn't come here to fight," Xavier said, "then why did you come here at all? What business do you have with me now?"

"Don't... Don't flatter yourself." Anna said flatly, "Ah don't need anything from you, Xavier. Ah know enough about mental powahs that ah don't want yours anymore. Ah want... Ah want to talk to the X-men."

"If you say anything that's worth sharing with them, I'll pass along your message." Xavier replied, matching Anna's flat tone of voice perfectly.

"Yeah. Ah know." Anna replied, her exhaustion clearly diminishing, "Let's get down to it, then. Xavier, ah kinda have two reasons for coming heah. First, ah can't just keep running around anymore. Ah'm too sad. Second... Second, ah think somebody's trying to kill me."

Xavier looked a little surprised by both of those answers, and more than a little inclined not to believe them. After all, Anna had rarely shown even the slightest remorse over her misdeeds in the past, and as for someone getting close to killing Anna, that seemed even less likely. With the combined powers of Ant-Man, the Wasp, and the thunder god Thor, Anna was virtually invincible, and the last that had been heard of her, she'd been flying around the country, more or less just having fun, but not really causing trouble very often. Of course, the worst trouble of her career was behind her; killing three of the original Avengers, and causing the initial disbanding of the team. Given how popular the new Avengers had become in recent months, it wasn't hard to see why someone would want Anna dead. The reason why her story was so unbelievable was that the number of people living on Earth who were capable of doing her any harm was very small. Sorcerers like Doctor Strange or Victor Von Doom might have been able to find some way to hurt her, but with the power of the thunder god, her protective magic should have been very strong, even against them. The Hulk, or She-Hulk might have had the strength needed to defeat her, but neither one had anything close to her speed. It was possible that Magneto or Sinister could have found some means of overpowering her, and the Juggernaut, though powerful physically, was still unconscious and imprisoned in an isolation chamber. Proteus, thank God, was still locked up tight, and Illyana had been under almost constant supervision by the X-men since her return to Earth. Namor and the Mole Man were possibilities, but Xavier couldn't think of anyone else who might be physically capable of harming Anna.

"I assume that whoever is making these attempts has actually gotten close to succeeding." Xavier replied slowly, though really, he was assuming no such thing, "Otherwise, you'd simply have dealt with the threat yourself, and not thought twice about it the following day."

"Xavier, all ah can do is tell you what happened. After that, ah can't make you believe me."

Xavier just nodded, prepared to hear Anna out for the moment. Even if it was a fabrication, nothing could be lost by listening.

"Ah've been feeling kinda down all month." Anna admitted, "Ah was starting to doubt mahself, wondering if ah'd made the right kinda choices for mah life. Ah had all the physical powah ah thought ah could want. The problem was, powah was all ah really had. Ah had the powah to go wherevah ah wanted, and hurt anybody ah wanted to, but... Ah only had one friend, and ah'm afraid he kinda... kinda got a little defensive, when ah hinted that ah might want to go to school, and make some more friends. Ah think he's the real reason ah didn't come to you sooner. Ah was pretty sad, and feeling kinda lonesome, but at least ah wasn't scared."

"Well, a week ago, ah got scared alright. Ah was flying back to the hotel ah'd been staying at, after a little... uh... trip, when all of a sudden, there was this big flash of lightning, and ah could feel that it wasn't one of mine. Then something came right out of the clouds; something ah couldn't see at first. It swept towards me in a blur, and smashed me right across mah face, and it really, really hurt. It was like ah wasn't even invulnerable anymore."

"When ah looked up again, whatever it was was gone. It was like somebody'd hit me, just to show they could. Ah don't know any more about it, except what happened just last night."

"Ah was asleep in bed, just the same as always, and all of a sudden, mah dreams turned sour. Ah started dreaming about things all around me blinking out, and everything turning to darkness. Tables, chairs, floors, walls... Even the sun and moon were turning all dark. Ah woke up all sweaty and scared, but what really scared me was that when ah got up out of bed, ah found the window open."

"So this person proved to you that they have the power to hurt you, and that they have the ability to track you down while you sleep." Xavier concluded, "Yes. I can understand why that would be upsetting, or even terrifying. In fact, I'm sure that was the whole point of their actions. I don't know who this person is, Anna, or even if you're telling the truth, and they really exist, but from what you're describing, it sounds like they're looking for revenge. You've probably hurt and terrified them in the past, and they're seeking to hurt and terrify you in exchange. They may even go further than that, and make a genuine attempt on your life. If so, it's possible that justice will have been done."

"What... what are you saying?" Anna asked, looking more exhausted than ever, as she asked the question.

"You're responsible for causing a great deal of death and misery, and very little else." Xavier replied angrily, "I'm no stranger to giving others a second chance, if that's truly what you want, nor am I afraid of your powers, but the suffering and loss that you've caused has to be atoned for somehow. If you'd atone for it yourself, in your own way, then I might be willing to intercede on your behalf with the X-men. However, you first have to prove that you're genuinely remorseful, rather than simply frightened enough to pretend that you are. Believe me, Anna, I will be able to tell the difference."

A look of anger was spreading across Anna's face, as the professor said that, however. It was clear that her loneliness was, in her view, nothing but a problem to be solved, and the powerful enemy that she seemed to have made was exactly the same; a problem to be overcome by any means necessary. She showed no sign of emotional sorrow over her misdeeds, but rather, she merely recognized that something had inconvenienced her, and she knew that she was unable to tear it down on her own. The professor was disappointed to see that.

"All these months," Xavier noted sadly, "and you still hide behind your own darkness to escape the pain of remorse. If what you want is my assistance, Anna, then you'll need to do the right thing, and the right thing to do is to face your problems; to confront them and conquer them, not to keep hiding from them. I've personally assisted you in recognizing the pain that you've caused to others, but I won't do it again. This time, if you want my help, you'll need to face that pain for yourself, and start to accept the consequences of your actions. I think you'll find that when you do that, your life will take on something of a cleaner shade."

With those words, Xavier turned his wheelchair around, heading through a door behind him. After only a moment, Logan followed him, still looking wary of Anna.

* * *

As soon as the elevator doors closed, Logan let Xavier hear a very strong thought of his; a thought so strong, that Xavier couldn't possibly have failed to notice it, even if he'd been trying to.

"What if she really turns it around, Chuck? What if she takes your advice?"

"Then there won't be a need to fight her anymore." Xavier replied telepathically.

"Really?" Logan thought back, "Chuck, that kid killed three members of the Avengers. The video records never showed her face too well, but people know what she sounds like, and Iron Man could ID her in a second. If it gets out that we've got the hero killer in here, or worse, that we helped her in some way, it could destroy us, Chuck. It could destroy you, the institute, and the X-men, even if Anna doesn't."

Xavier didn't reply for a few seconds, debating what to say, but finally, his face covered in worry, he just remarked "I don't expect her to make that kind of progress."

"You're not answering my question, Chuck." Logan said irritably, "What if she does? What do we do then? If we turn her away, she could totally lose control again and try to kill us, and if we don't, it could mean the end of everything we care about; the school, the X-men; everything. I hope you don't have to make that choice, Chuck, but you need to be ready if you do."

By that point, the elevator doors had opened again, and Xavier was wheeling himself out into the front hallway of the institute with Logan close behind. However, it wasn't until Xavier had gotten back into his study that he truly replied to Logan's objection, and he did so aloud.

"Logan, I have to be the man I am, and even though she's frequently made attempts on my life, there's nothing I want more than to see her reform, and learn to act with justice. If she ever decided to do the right thing, and defend justice in her own life, instead of being obsessed with selfish ambitions, as she was in the past, I think that I'd be willing to defend her; even against the Avengers themselves."

When Logan heard that, his face fell a little, and he was clearly dissatisfied with Xavier's reply, but even so, he didn't feel as if he was ready to jump ship. Somehow, even the idea of the new Avengers coming down hard on them for protecting a killer wasn't enough to scare Logan into disloyalty. He remembered how Iron Man had considered him significant enough to offer him a place in the Avengers, and he had a feeling that the others would probably be willing to take him seriously on Iron Man's word. However, even if no one considered his opinion, or wanted to give Anna a second chance, Logan never could have abandoned Xavier. The two of them simply owed each other too much.

Of course, Logan had a feeling as he left Xavier's study, that if nothing else, the worst event of the day was over. Anna's arrival had been jarring and disruptive, and they'd really gotten lucky, considering how easy it had been to bring her in. There wasn't much chance of anything worse happening on the exact same day.

However, as Logan passed by the front doors, he heard the sound of footsteps approaching from outside. Quickly, he moved over to the door, and waited as the person got closer, but something was wrong. Logan didn't recognize the person's scent at all. The visitor was new to the Xavier Institute. Of course, it was possible that it might be just a new student, who'd been referred by a friend, but Logan doubted that somewhat. Nonetheless, he realized, he was probably just being paranoid. In just a moment, he heard the doorbell ring, and responded at once, opening the front door, and leaning outside a little.

Sure enough, the person standing outside didn't look much like a student. In fact, he was clearly at least in his thirties, with a short mustache, and short, black hair. His eyes were a sort of odd, reddish tint, but he had a friendly enough smile. Even so, something wasn't right about him. It wasn't exactly a strange scent; he was certainly human, and yet, his very presence made Logan want to cry out in rage and fear.

"Good afternoon." the man said, from behind that smile of his, "My name is Vincent Edison, and I'm here on behalf of a collaboration in which mister Harry Leland is involved. I understand that Professor Xavier has met with him before."

Logan remembered that meeting fairly well. In fact, he recalled Leland's attempt to purchase the institute rather vividly, and remembered the smell of tension, and suppressed rage that had flowed through Leland's very blood when he'd realized that the institute wasn't for sale. If another of his buddies had dropped by to try again, he was destined for disappointment too.

"Alright." Logan replied, "Come on in, but try to keep it down. It's a school, and there are plenty of classes going on at the moment."

Edison just nodded. He seemed satisfied enough with that reply for some reason, as he followed Logan inside, and looked around. After scanning the front hall for only a few seconds, he was able to locate the door to Xavier's study, recognizing it from the descriptions he'd been given.

"If you don't mind, I'd like to speak with the Professor." Edison said with that smile of his.

"Well, you don't need my permission." Logan replied half-heartedly.

"Very well then." Edison said, without any attempt to convince Logan that no offense had been intended. For someone like Edison, the business at hand was all that mattered. It was obvious that he was a very rich man, and his business-first mentality was probably at least one of the reasons.

Quickly, Edison moved over to Xavier's study door, and knocked briefly, receiving an answer from within in only a second.

"Enter."

The thin, wooden door opened quickly, and in seconds, Edison was inside, although as quickly as he entered, it didn't seem as if he were barging in. Xavier watched him with a combination of care, and a friendly-looking smile, though Edison could tell that Xavier was feeling stressed about something. Whether or not Xavier knew what was about to transpire between them, something had shaken him up that day already.

"Hello, Professor Xavier." Edison began, "My name is Vincent Edison. I'm working with mister Harry Leland on something of a collaborative venture, and..."

"Vincent Edison?" Xavier asked, amazed, "The founder of Genuine Bargain Real Estate?"

"As well as numerous other companies of equal repute." Edison replied, without a moment wasted on the customary false humility, "Professor, I know that you've spoken with Mister Leland before, and you told him that this establishment wasn't for sale."

"That's quite correct." Xavier replied, "Not at any price."

At that point, however, Edison stroked his chin a little, as if he were trying to think of the best way to break bad news to a dying man. Finally, he spoke again, as his friendly smile faded, "The fact is, professor, I was asked to do a bit of research after that, to discover who owned this land, and I'm afraid that you made your decision without the consent of the land's real owner."

"That's impossible." Xavier replied with a calm shake of his head, "I am this land's real owner."

"According to the research that I've done over the last several months, that isn't true, Professor." Edison replied grimly, "The land you're living on was sold to someone else quite some time before you inherited it. I'm afraid your ancestors were conned into buying land that already belonged to someone."

"This land has been in my family for quite some time." Xavier replied, his determination and anger growing gradually.

"Unfortunately, that's not the case." Edison replied, "All the legal records from that era cite a Mister Lawrence Pierce as the owner of the land. Of course, Pierce is dead now, but he has an heir named Donald, who inherited all his holdings, including this entire building."

The color seemed to have drained from Xavier's face by that point in the conversation. Clearly, he was worried about what was being proposed.

"Should I assume that you have evidence to support these claims?" Xavier asked, the worry quite apparent in his voice.

"Yes. There's extensive and well-documented evidence of the purchase of his land by Mister Pierce, and the inheritance of his holdings by Donald. If you'd like, I'd be happy to share my full findings with you. I can have it e-mailed to you tonight. In fact, I'd be surprised if some documents related to that transaction weren't in your own computer records already."

"Did you come here just to tell me this, or is there another reason?" Xavier asked, "Of course, if any of this is true, it will place me in rather a bad position. I assume that Pierce has already sold the land to Leland."

"Not precisely." Edison replied, "However, Pierce and Leland have formed a conglomeration of sorts, in their attempts to develop this land and its contents in their own way. They're both pleased with the idea of operating a school for the gifted here, and have agreed to treat the Xavier Institute as a tenancy, rather than as trespassing. With only a few administrational and budgetary changes, I suspect that things in the Xavier Institute won't really change much, based on this new revelation. Unless, of course, you'd like to take your organization elsewhere. The property may not be legally yours, but the school as an organization still is. If you want, you can relocate it, provided you can find a suitable building to house it in. Leland and Pierce are planning to use this building to continue its function as a school for the gifted, even if you do pull out, however. It would just mean a lot more work, and a much greater cost for everyone."

"No..." Xavier muttered, "I'm not ready to make that kind of decision yet. Even if all of this turns out to be true, that's not an easy decision to make. I know enough about the two men you've mentioned, that I dislike the idea of them making administrative decisions in regards to the way this school is run. I also want what's best for my students. I'd rather not settle for less, in terms of school grounds and facilities. Send me your findings on the subject tonight, and give me a chance to look them over. I won't make a serious decision on this claim of yours until I've seen the proof."

"That's alright, Professor Xavier." Edison replied, with a sympathetic-looking frown, "I'm sure this must be a horrible shock. I'll send you the data tonight, and call you again a week from now. That should be enough time for you to look over and double-check my findings. I'm sorry to be the bearer or bad news like this."

In only a few seconds, Vincent left the way he'd come in, not bothering with the pleasantries of a good-bye. There was no real point anyway. Xavier was a smart man, and clearly, he knew what was really going on. Edison knew for certain that Xavier saw him as an enemy of sorts, and there was no point in being pleasant to one's enemies. Also, Edison was fairly convinced that Xavier would soon find out the truth about how the property of the Xavier Institute had fallen into Pierce's hands, and indeed, that he'd started to suspect already. If that was true, Xavier would probably find some way to escape the situation they'd placed him in. However, that didn't really matter to Edison. In a sense, as a member of the Hellfire Club's inner circle, he wanted their plans for the institute to succeed on some level, but the real prize that he'd wanted was already his.

In only moments, as Vincent left, Xavier closed his eyes tightly, and spoke out with his thoughts; "X-men. We have a situation."

* * *

Xavier had waited for all the X-men to arrive in his study, the last to arrive being Jubilee, who seemed to be doing her best not to look worried. Hank Mccoy and Logan stood on either side of the professor, awaiting his explanation as the doors closed behind them.

"This is difficult for me to explain." Xavier began sadly, "I've received notification that someone has managed to acquire custody of this property, and after doing only a little research of my own, I'm convinced that it's no bluff. A man named Donald Pierce is responsible. I don't know how he did it, or for that matter, what his agenda is, but it seems he's managed to acquire the entire school, without a word of it being breathed to me. Another man; named Edison came by earlier today and told me that one of Pierce's ancestors had purchased this property before my family did. That much, at least, is a lie. I know for a fact that my family members did a great deal of research into the history of all the property they purchased for a number of reasons. If there had been a hidden owner somewhere along the line, they would have noticed after only the first day of study. I don't know how Pierce managed to acquire this property, but I refuse to believe his story."

"Maybe Edison was lying." Mccoy suggested, "Maybe Pierce still doesn't own the mansion."

"Believe me, Hank." Xavier replied sadly, "I wish I could count on that being true. However, when I delved into the older computer records of our own mansion, I found documentation that clearly names Pierce the mansion's true owner. That's the other reason I refuse to believe his story. I distinctly remember looking over that documentation personally, and Pierce's name was nowhere on it."

"At the moment, we're on the defensive." Xavier continued sadly, "Donald Pierce has acquired this property only recently, and done so by tampering with the mansion's files somehow. That can't have been easy to do. Our security measures are extensive; especially around protected files like that one. He would have essentially needed to hardwire a new processor onto the back of the first, in order to edit them."

"I didn't get that, but it sounds like he hacked our computer." Bobby said from nearby, "Could he do that from the internet?"

"No." Xavier replied, "As I said, it would have required physical access to the computer, and this computer isn't even on-line anyway. It..."

In only a moment, a realization seemed to dawn on Xavier, and he turned to look at Henry Mccoy almost at once.

"Henry, do you remember about a year ago, when a group of mutants wearing masks broke into the mansion, then left without doing us any real harm?"

"Of course." Mccoy replied, "One of them broke into your study. I fought with him for a short while, but he got the drop on me. Back then, we didn't know what they wanted. Now that we know what they were after, it seems as if the whole attack was staged just for that purpose, which also explains why they tried to send human troops in to infiltrate the mansion first. Obviously, they were hoping not to have to use force, when stealth would be just as effective."

"Fortunately, there's a chance we might be able to disprove their claims by a simple visit to the department of public records..." Xavier began, but he was cut off, after only a few seconds, by Jubilee.

"Not a chance in Hell."

"I'm sorry?" Xavier asked, not approving of that kind of language, "What do you mean by that?"

"Look," Jubilee said, a snarky expression already carved into her face, "I know what it's like to shoplift, and when you're doing a crime like that; even a little one, the first thing you do is look around, and make sure nobody sees you, so that no one's paying attention when you make your move. If it were a bigger crime, like this, you'd want to be even more careful, and make sure nobody could catch you by the time you decided to strike. If they could break into the Xavier Institute, they could break into the public records department, and unless these guys are complete idiots, they must have done that. In fact, it might be why it's taken so long for them to make their move. Maybe they wanted to make sure they'd already tampered with all the records that needed tampering with."

The reply was rather intelligent, especially for Jubilee, whose grades were moderate at best. She had a legitimate point.

"Yes. I admit, you're probably right about that." Xavier agreed sadly, "Still, I'd feel better having checked the records there. Ororo, I want you and Logan to go to the public records department. It should still be open. Look at the documents pertaining to full ownership of the Xavier Institute, and tell me whether you see the name Pierce anywhere on it. Scott, I'd like you to place a call to Doctor Moira Mctaggert. I'll give you her number in a moment. Ask her to check on the files that I sent her five years ago, to see if I'm still the owner of my own property."

"Doctor Mctaggert has copies of the institute deeds?" Scott asked in surprise.

"She should." Xavier replied, "Still, they might have gotten to her copies of the files already. A few people knew she had them aside from her, myself and... my other good friend at the time."

Scott knew better than to ask who else Xavier had trusted, but Bobby clearly didn't, because he spoke up at once.

"So there's another guy out there who might have a copy?"

"Yes," Xavier replied, "and I doubt these people would have been able to tamper with his. However, at the moment, it seems that he doesn't wish to be found, especially not by us. I speak, of course, of Magneto."

Even Bobby knew that the subject had to be dropped right there. Xavier always seemed just a little sadder, whenever the subject of Magneto was brought up since his defeat, and Bobby had no desire to ruin the Professor's mood. He looked away, wondering silently if there was anything that he could do to help resolve the current crisis.

"Doctor Mccoy," Xavier said, turning to face Hank, "I'll need you to check the computer files of all the departments we sent copies of the documents to, as well as the agencies and utility departments we've depended on for assistance over the years. Most of them needed to recognize my ownership of the place before they'd offer their services."

"It will be my distinct pleasure to snoop for you." Hank replied with a smile, turning to leave the room.

"Assuming that all of our efforts fail, there's one more option that we have," Xavier replied, "though I hesitate to take it. I'll call you back if it becomes necessary to pursue that course, but with some luck, we should be able to resolve this without needing outside assistance."

The X-men knew that that was their cue. For all of them except Ororo, Logan, and Scott, it was time to get back to their homework, and their other personal affairs. Even so, the talk with Xavier had definitely had its impact on each of them. Not one of them could just go back to what they'd been doing, without wondering what their lives would have been like without the Xavier Institute. What, they wondered, would they do if it suddenly wasn't there for them?

The thoughts that sprang from those questions weren't comforting ones.

* * *

Anna had drifted in and out of consciousness over the course of the last several hours. She couldn't seem to get her energy to go up far enough to do anything but lift one hand, and only just barely. Xavier was probably counting on that to keep her in that prison of his, even though he didn't have a barrier, or any kind of substance that she couldn't simply break out of, with very little effort otherwise. Chemical sedation was the only kind of prison that could have held her, and she had to admit that she couldn't see any way out, not even with the vast intelligence of Henry Pym at her disposal.

"C-come out." she muttered, and in a moment, images appeared before her again; the images of Thor, the Wasp, Hank Pym, and her father; the people she'd killed. They were, after all, her best friends. Surely, they'd have some sage advice.

"Now what?" Anna asked, worried.

"I'm sorry." Janet said sadly, "I didn't know this was going to happen."

"Indeed?" Thor asked, seemingly just as upset as Anna, "Tis an obvious sort of reaction to me. These X-men fear thy strength, because thou hast given them reason to be afraid in the past. Thou art the enemy in their eyes, and only a fool would give quarter to his enemies."

"Are you saying it's too late for me?" Anna asked, horrified, "Ah burned too many bridges? Ah can't be forgiven?"

"Living people hardly ever react like we do, to being threatened with death." Pym replied, "At this point, each of us is really a part of you, and you could never turn against yourself. The reason why we support you is that we are you. If not for you, we wouldn't even exist as we are now. Don't think I'm not thankful for that, Anna, but the real Henry Pym would have tried to kill you for it."

It was the first time that any of Anna's dead friends had brought the subject up at all, and it brought a sense of perspective to her world, which she'd sort of lacked before. When Anna had first gotten started, some part of her had wondered if maybe taking others was the best solution; just taking them all, and making them behave nicely, as part of herself until, in a sense, her presence had covered the whole world, making everyone happy. However, she'd always stayed her hand from that course of action, because somehow, she'd always sort of doubted that the solution was that simple. She'd never asked her dead friends about it directly before, because she'd been afraid of what their answer would be, but Pym's explanation had given her the truth of the situation; that her friends really were dead. What remained; the images that she spoke to on occasion, had all of their brilliance, compassion, cleverness, and uniqueness, but it wasn't really them. It was just her, talking to herself. Of course, in her case, there was nothing wrong with talking to herself. It was a natural byproduct of her mutant powers, but at last, she began to realize that she had, in fact, done more harm than just upsetting a few relatives. Anna had removed the Avengers from the world; destroying the people they'd been, in order to expand herself. Raven had instructed her to go through with it at the time, but she still wouldn't have done it if some part of herself hadn't wanted to; hadn't desired that boundless power and consciousness. Since then, her life had been very unique, but that didn't make the things she'd done any less horrible, or selfish. She'd usurped the lives of others to increase her own, and suddenly, having found herself in possession of near-invulnerability, and everlasting life, Anna knew that she couldn't kill people like that anymore. She didn't need any more power, or any greater wisdom, and although she longed for more friends to keep her company in hard times, she was recognizing that the people she depended on and loved weren't really other people, but rather, were a part of herself. It felt better than friendship at times, but deep down inside, she knew that it wasn't real. It wasn't the same.

As Anna thought those things over, however, the images of her "friends" faded, and she heard a sharp tapping on the glass of her enclosure.

Anna's whole body felt like it weighed hundreds of tons, but she was able to look up, in the end, to see the boy who was trying to get her attention. It was that ice-kid she'd seen when she'd first entered the building.

"I thought you might be hungry." he said, nodding downward a little, at a small enclosure in the metal on the inside of her cell. It had clearly been slid in, through a type of tiny air lock, and there was some food on a plate inside that enclosure, of just about the least healthy type that Anna could imagine. The tray contained store-bought cookies; still in the bag, and a grilled cheese sandwich. Lovely. Still, food was food, and she was hungry. After only a few more seconds, she managed to summon up the strength to reach for the food, and started eating it. It did taste good, though Anna knew it wasn't really going to satisfy her.

"Not exactly the chef's special, but it's not bad." Anna muttered, as she finished the sandwich. It was a more positive reply than she'd meant to give, but honestly, looking at the ice-kid like that, and recognizing the work that he'd done in the hopes of making her feel a little better, it was hard to act selfish and snap at him, as she otherwise might have done. She just didn't have the energy to complain about the inadequacies of her new lifestyle.

"Are you okay?" the boy asked a little remorsefully, though he wasn't sure what he'd done wrong, exactly.

"Ah'm trapped in a cage." Anna just replied in between cookies, "What do you think?"

"Well, you did try to kill us a bunch of times." the boy replied, "You can't exactly blame us for being careful."

It was another tidbit of logic that might once have escaped Anna's notice. Not that long ago, she'd have gleefully blamed anyone who made her upset, as if that was, in itself, the highest possible crime. It was hard to come down from that goddess-like self-image, and learn to even recognize, much less care about the feelings of others. Even Anna's first experience of the pain of loss that Xavier had shared with her hadn't really made her recognize other's feelings as having much value. She'd been more concerned with protecting her own feelings, and with not having to share the pain of others anymore. It was, she slowly realized, what she'd really been running from ever since the time when the brotherhood's attack on the Institute had failed.

"Ah guess not." she muttered, finishing half of the cookie bag, though she hesitated to finish the other half, until she was certain that she was going to get more food at some point. Her weird metabolism craved the rest of the cookies, and indeed, ten times more than the ice-boy had offered her, but she was fairly certain she wasn't going to get it. The people there didn't really understand her powers; the divine capacity for food and drink that she'd taken from the thunder god, and even if they had, they probably would have been careful not to give her much, just to punish her.

"You really didn't want to hurt us this time, did you?" the boy asked, amazed and pleased that she'd accepted the food he'd given her.

"Nah." she replied sadly, looking straight at him as she spoke, "Ah was hoping ah could depend on y'all to help me out. Ah don't know why. Ah can't think of a reason why you'd help me. It's not like ah've earned it or anything. Ah guess ah just always thought that you and your group were the nice ones, and y'all would forgive me if ah just took it easy on you."

"I think the professor will forgive you eventually." the boy said, "What do you need our help with, anyway?"

"Somebody's trying to kill me." Anna said, "Ah wanted Xavier to help me track the guy down, whoever he is."

"Seriously?" the boy replied, amazed, "I mean, wow. Who'd be crazy enough to try to kill you?"

"Yeah..." Anna replied sarcastically, "Like locking me up in a cell is that much bettah. Look, ah have to get outta heah. Ah need Xavier to help me out, so ah can settle some things with a woman on the outside, but first, he has to give me a chance. I want to talk to him again."

"That..." the boy muttered, "That might be a little hard to set up. Right now, we're having kind of a problem, and we have to solve it before we can worry about what to do with you."

"No joke?" Anna asked, looking disappointed, "Y'all have a problem, and you never thought to ask me for mah help?"

For a few seconds, the boy looked at Anna like she had three heads, and when he spoke, there was some sadness in his voice.

"I'm not that stupid." he said, "You don't work well as part of a team. I can tell that about you already. You're still confused about what you want to do with your life, and you sure don't really want to help us. I remember what happened to the last team you joined. I don't want to see that happen to the X-men. I put a good word in for you with the professor last time, because I felt sorry for you, but we're not going to be fooled into letting you go, just because you say you want to help us. I can tell you really don't."

Bobby's words struck out and stung Anna right in the heart. They probably wouldn't have stung so badly if they hadn't been completely true. She'd been trying to fall back on her old methods again; using any means at her disposal to get what she wanted, instead of really worrying about others. The ice-boy was right. She didn't really have any reason to help the X-men. At least, none that she could think of. The suggestion she'd made had been vague enough to not sound too suspicious, but anyone else might have immediately lost their pity for her, given that she'd just basically tried to trick the kid. That was, she was quickly realizing, considered a bad move in a relationship based on trust, rather than loneliness.

"Ah..." Anna muttered sadly, "Ah didn't... Ah mean, ah... Ah don't know what to do. Ah've never really belonged anywhere. Ah put a kid in a coma at school, ah killed my daddy, then Raven was there, and ah killed the Avengers, and after that... After that, ah went rogue. Ah guess you're right. Ah don't really care about folks, but ah don't know who to care about really, or how. It's so hard... Ah've been depending on mahself for so long, ah just don't know... Ah've nevah had a normal relationship in mah life..."

However, even as Anna said that, she knew that it was only partly true. There had been one relationship in her life that had taught her the value of caring about others. The time that Anna had spent with Fred Dukes had, if nothing else, taught her what it meant to spend time with someone, and the value of being able to depend on someone else's assistance in driving away loneliness. Their relationship hadn't been a very deep or complicated one, nor had they really been able to discuss much of common interest, but it had been really nice to have somebody who understood the challenges of mutant powers, that were as much a curse as a blessing. Neither of them had felt lonely when the other had been around, although Anna had sometimes behaved as if Fred were her pet, rather than her friend, yanking him wherever she wanted him to go, and bossing him around, and he, in turn, was a little defensive at times, and seemed to worry about who else she was spending time with rather frequently. It had been a sort of lopsided relationship, but it was the only one that Anna had ever been part of, where she actually cared what happened to the person on the other end.

Maybe, Anna thought for a moment, it was just a matter of putting one foot forward, in trying to make friends, and hoping that they'd learn to accept the strange things about her, or maybe, in a few instances, there were things about herself that she might be able to fix; things that would have gotten in the way of potential friendships. Naturally, however, her mutant powers weren't on that list of things that she could correct, or change about herself.

Those thoughts had shot through her head relatively quickly, and when she was ready to speak again, the boy was still there, though he looked a little confused, as if he wasn't sure what to expect.

"Ah..." Anna muttered nervously, "Ah guess ah'm sorry. Ah don't know how to be anybody's friend, really. Ah guess ah'm not as smart as ah thought ah was. Maybe ah should have listened to her..."

"Who?" the boy asked, suddenly confused by the direction their conversation was traveling in, "You mean Raven?"

"Nah, not Raven." Anna replied, "Ah mean... uh..."

In fact, Anna couldn't answer the boy's question comfortably. Only one person had ever really offered to help Anna learn how to make friends; Janet Van Dyne. The problem with trying to explain that to the ice-kid was that Janet was dead. Anna wasn't sure that she could tell Bobby that she'd been talking with Janet; that Janet was inside her head; inside her soul. Finding out that her powers worked that way might weird him out too much, given that he still looked a little untrusting of her. Anna couldn't have explained Janet to him, because she was scared that explanation would drive him away.

"Nevah mind." Anna replied, "It's not important. What's your name?"

"Well, my enemies call me Iceman," the boy said with a smile, "but to my friends, I'm Bobby."

Anna took note of the tone of mild distrust that still lingered in Bobby's voice, and in the course of action he'd just taken. He hadn't dared to give her his last name, which meant that he still didn't really trust her. That felt a little discouraging, but then, maybe Anna was just overreacting. He'd never said he didn't want to be her friend; he just wasn't quite there yet. It would probably just take time.

"Do you ever wish you were just an ordinary Joe?" Anna asked, and that question had clearly gotten Bobby's attention. Anna was badly deficient in morals, ethics, and manners, but it seemed that she was ready to start talking. Bobby was pretty sure that he wouldn't be the most interesting person to talk to, but he was the person she'd addressed, and in a way, he really did want to talk to her for a little while.

* * *

Vincent Edison frowned, as he waited for the mutants of the Xavier Institute to fall asleep. For the Hellfire Club's inner circle, things seemed to be going fairly well, although for him, things had quickly gone from encouraging to irritating. He'd known where the young goddess-mutant had retreated to during her flight from the hotel, and he'd pursued her as best he could, tracking her scent after she'd landed at the institute, to confirm that she was really there. Once there, she'd been ambushed and captured, then her scent had started fading away.

As Edison sat in the tree closest to the institute, he could tell that somehow, Anna had been imprisoned in some kind of airtight container. It was the only explanation for why her scent had grown cold. If she'd been killed or incinerated somehow, that would only have made her scent stronger. No, she was still alive, and being kept in a location that seemed secure. In fact, without knowing more about the methods they'd used to trap her, it would have been foolhardy to attempt to gain access to her, no matter how much Edison wanted to. For that night, he decided, he'd have to leave Anna alone. In time, the X-men's security measures would probably diminish, and he'd get another chance, but for the moment, the best that he could do was return to Shaw, and report how things had gone.

"These mutants..." Edison thought to himself, the sun having long finished its descent over the horizon, "So powerful and unpredictable; all coming into the world at once, without warning. I have too many weaknesses. There are many other solutions to this problem, but the only one I'd really be satisfied with is Anna. I can't let a chance like this escape me."

Then Vincent Edison descended quickly from the tree in which he'd been sitting, landing on the ground without injury. In a moment, he was walking across the institute grounds in the direction of the meeting place that he and Shaw had arranged, and as he walked, his body began to change; sections of it breaking off, and changing shape, yet he continued to move, as if without injury, or even inconvenience. In only moments, a cloud of large, black bats ascended as one into the night sky.

* * *

To be continued...


	24. X Men 8: Robin Hood

X-Men Neo

Issue 8

"Robin Hood"

* * *

When Xavier woke on the morning following Anna's arrival at the mansion, it was to the sound of the loud alarm clock right next to his bed. He had to get up at a certain hour if he wanted to get everything done on time. After all, managing a school was a challenging task. It took quite a bit of work and a lot of preparation, and that morning, things were even worse. Xavier's job entailed more than just managing lesson plans; especially on that day in particular. In addition to all of his other obligations, Xavier had to get reports from the X-men on the state of his property; specifically, whether it was still legally his.

"X-men," Xavier said, sending out his first telepathic message of the morning, as he slid out of bed, and into his wheelchair, "Please meet me in my study as soon as possible."

* * *

Xavier was in his study five minutes later, still dressed in his bathrobe, but what he had to do was too important. It couldn't wait; not even the few minutes that it would have taken him to dress. Besides, the X-men had all gathered a mere three minutes after him. As Hank Mccoy closed the door behind Jean; the last arrival, with a somber look in his eyes, Xavier had a feeling, somehow, that he wasn't in for good news.

"Henry?" Xavier asked gravely, "What did you find?"

"Well, I personally didn't think they'd try to pull something like this unless they'd taken care of the internet evidence first." Mccoy replied sadly, "I'm sorry to say, that deduction of mine was as brilliant as always."

"Logan?" Xavier asked, "Did you and Ororo find anything at the records department?"

"No luck." Logan replied, looking a little down, "The documents are all changed, just like the one in your computer."

"Scott?" Xavier asked, "What did Moira say?"

Scott looked upset, and even a little scared when he spoke next, however.

"Professor, it seems like somebody managed to break into the Muir Island facility and change their records too. Whoever it was really covered all the bases."

Of course, it was extremely bad news. There was only a small chance that they might be able to resolve the problem by that point, and it was sure to be difficult, no matter what they attempted next.

"Short of locating Magneto again, I can only think of one other way to acquire a copy of the original document." Xavier said, already feeling grave disappointment over the fact that so few options were open to them anymore. When the mansion was first purchased, copies of the document were sent to the Los Angeles, New York, Boston, Washington, and Baton Rouge record departments, then later scanned into a series of shared files within the government intranet. I'm sure the intranet's been compromised by now, but there's still one chance. About fifteen years ago, someone broke into the Baton Rouge records department and made off with copies of numerous files, many of which were considered high-risk by the the government. All property purchases under names starting with O, P, B, X and W were taken for some reason, but large sections of the government's file security measures were cracked at the time, and they almost definitely managed to acquire a copy of the original document of the Xavier Institute's purchase. At the time, I didn't think anything of it, because I had my own copy, but no one ever caught the person responsible for stealing those files, and if that person still hasn't been caught or identified, there's a chance that they might have a copy of the file we need."

"Sounds like a long shot, professor." Scott said from one edge of the room, "I mean, you're basically saying that we have to track down and catch somebody who's never been tracked down or caught."

"Oh, come on!" Bobby exclaimed from the other side of the room, looking exasperated with Scott for his pessimism, "Don't be such a downer, Scott. We can catch this guy. I mean, we're the X-men, for crying out loud."

Bobby's outburst drew a brief smile to Xavier's face. Iceman could be trouble at times, but he was good to have around when a pep talk was needed, because if nothing else, he never lost hope. Bobby always held onto the belief, ill-founded though it might have been, that he and the X-men were the best at what they did, and if they ever outright failed, Xavier was fairly certain that Bobby would have just forgotten about it on the following day. He was just that kind of person; positive to a fault.

"So where are we supposed to start looking?" Scott asked, "I mean, the professor can't just read everyone's mind in the whole world all at once, and find out who's been stealing what."

"As far as where to begin your search, that's no mystery." Xavier replied, "At the time of the robbery, the police and security forces were certain that the thief had managed to escape into New Orleans. You'll want to travel there to start your search."

The news drew diverse reactions from the X-men. Many of them seemed disappointed that they'd need to travel that far, but were determined to do what they could. However, Scott and Logan both looked worried by that news, and Kurt seemed very reserved about the idea.

"In other words, the file might not even exist anymore." Logan said, voicing Scott's own worries, "After the hurricane, and with all he reconstruction, one disc can get lost real easy. Even a person can get lost in a big disaster."

"Yes." Xavier replied, "It might be nothing more than a wild goose chase. If the flooding damaged the file in some way, our only hope will be to find Magneto again. I'd rather it didn't come to that."

"I have no place in New Orleans."

The words had been spoken suddenly and surprisingly. All of the X-men turned as one, to look at the person who'd spoken them. It wasn't the first time that Kurt Wagner had surprised them, and it probably wouldn't be the last.

"What's wrong, Kurt?" Jean asked, looking a little worried as she sat near where he was crouched on the floor, "I thought you'd be eager to go. There's bound to be plenty of chances to show how much you care about people."

"Opportunities to show love and mercy are not rare, no matter where I go," Kurt explained, sorrow all over his face, "but there are places in this nation that will not accept the grace of God, and that is one of them. I can do little to help save the souls of the people living there."

"Huh?" Jubilee asked from the other side of the room, "What are you talking about? Is this some kind of deep, religious thing?"

"You speak as if there were something rare and mysterious about religion." Kurt replied a little testily, "The truth is, I am catholic. I have been for as long as I can remember; believing in the moral teachings of both Jesus himself, and the pope, and I've done much study into the history of my religion. Though catholicism forbids open war against established governments, every single government on Earth that has become an influential world power has at some point suppressed the faith. It started with Egypt, enslaving the Israelites, despite the good turn done to them by Joseph, son of Jacob. The Assyrians conquered Israel and enslaved the entire population, then the Romans made sport of feeding Christians to the lions, centuries later. After that, the hundred years war led to enmity for the church developing in England, which still hasn't dissipated, even now that the British Empire is dead. Now, the phrase 'separation of church and state' is used in America as an excuse for forbidding church-inspired morals from having any impact on the decisions that govern the lives of the American people. I view all of these things as oppression of the faithful, but I understand that kind of oppression. I have no fears when I'm faced with it, because I know that what really matters are the people around me; the souls of people; not their governments."

"When I first came to America, I spent a night in a hotel in Boston. In that one night, I heard the people around me in the hotel lobby discussing unholy atrocities of the worst kind; excesses of drinking, gambling and misbehavior in the city streets at late hours, so-called 'love-making' outside of wedlock, and public displays of one's personal cravings, and fetishes that serve only to decrease the wholesomeness of the world. There was even casual discussion of the butchery of the innocent, and the sickening acceptance of the idea that seems to have become entertainment to such people as them. I have a strong stomach. If not, I'm certain that I would have spent all night vomiting. I was glad to leave that city as quickly as possible. The bible refers to places like that, where the worst sins are casually accepted as a simple choice, or a way of life. Some of those places were destroyed by fire, others by a flood. Once, I thought that such judgments were harsh, but they're God's judgments to make, and on that night in Boston, I started to see why they might have been needed."

"New Orleans may still contain just people." Kurt said, finishing his explanation, "In fact, many of them may have been turned towards the path of God by their desperation and suffering. However, it's also a place where public opinion has been tainted by the view that sin is in some way alright; that there will be no accountability for the wrongs that people commit. I'm not certain that I can just go there on business. I nearly lost my temper with those men in Boston, and I'm convinced that the same thing would happen in New Orleans. I apologize. I should come along out of simple loyalty. After all, I followed you into Limbo itself. No human city could be worse than that."

"Then you'll join in the mission." Xavier realized in relief.

"Yes," Kurt replied sadly, "if only to help protect the rest of you from temptation and evil."

Jubilee was a little offended by Kurt's words. After such a gigantic tragedy had occurred to so many people, he'd had the gall to condemn them for their lack of faith, as if that alone was responsible for their misery. Jubilee wanted to snap at Kurt right then and there; to come down on him for being cruel or insensitive in some way, but she couldn't bring herself to do it, and she wasn't sure why. Maybe it was because she thought that doing so would convince him not to join in the mission, but then again, there was something a little fishy about suggesting that Kurt wasn't compassionate or caring. He'd shown numerous times that he did, in fact, care about others, and was loving and mature enough to make big, difficult choices on their behalf, as he had when fighting Proteus. It had been his compassion for the dying soldiers that had prompted him to risk his own life in the battle against that deadly mutant. Was there, she wondered, something wrong with Kurt; some contradiction in his line of thinking, or, even more terrifying, was he right? Was the contradiction not in him, but in the overly-accepting world view that made immoral acts seem good?

The idea scared Jubilee more than a little, because she'd been raised on the concept that right and wrong were illusions. It was a philosophy that was widely preached in public schools, and rarely challenged, even in private. In fact, that philosophy and her own pride were major factors that had shaped almost her entire life. She hardly ever doubted her actions, hesitated in the face of something that others said was wrong, or indeed, questioned the moral implications of her actions at all. Jubilee's devotion to the X-men was a more emotional and honorable thing, rather than because she thought it was in some way "good." When she thought about it that way, Jubilee could understand some of what Kurt had felt during their numerous differences of opinion. All the times that Kurt had told her that he didn't like her personally, and she'd shrugged it off with a comment about how she felt the same way about him... Suddenly, Jubilee understood a little more about the problems that she and Kurt had had getting along. She saw his Holy Joe attitude as an irritant, and to him, her moral ambivalence was like surrendering to the forces of evil. They had, Jubilee realized, no middle ground on which they could meet, except that they were both X-men, and both cared about what happened to one another. They worked together as members of the same team, and yet, they were closer to being enemies than friends.

Jubilee found that thought even more unsettling than anything else. In fact, she'd already started wondering whether she really wanted Kurt to go on the mission with them after all.

* * *

The plan, naturally, was to try to locate the thief on four separate fronts. The X-men had left their Blackbird jet several miles outside of town, and from there, Jean would monitor the actions of the others, and report any new discoveries to the professor. She and the professor would stay in the jet, as Xavier tried to scan the city for information about the thief, using the machine known as Cerebro to enhance his psychic powers. Meanwhile, Professor Mccoy would hook up to the local internet, and search for digital clues about the tantalizing, unsolved mystery that everything hinged on. The rest of the X-men were going to split up into groups, and conduct independent investigations in the city. Piotr and Logan formed one group, Scott, Bobby, and Ororo formed a second, leaving...

That left only two of the X-men to constitute the last group, and Jubilation knew with dread what kind of a day she had on her hands. She'd never been alone with Kurt on a mission before, and the very idea upset her so much, that she tried to argue with Xavier about it at first. Once the assignments had been handed out, Jubilee got Xavier's attention, and encouraged him to follow her into the next room, where she made sure the door was closed tightly. Jubilee just hoped that Kurt wouldn't be able to hear her through that door, because she was fairly sure that even he would take offense at what she was about to say.

"Professor..." Jubilee whined almost the very moment the door was closed, "You can't stick me with Kurt."

Xavier didn't look particularly surprised by Jubilee's objection, though he waited patiently for several seconds before he bothered trying to ask "Why?"

"I... Uh... Well..." Jubilee stammered for a moment, trying to think up some really good reason on the spur of the moment, but she hadn't thought that far ahead. She hardly ever did. Making complex plans wasn't exactly her forte.

"I intended for each of these teams to consist of members who could supplement each other's strengths and weaknesses." Xavier replied, "In that respect, you're an almost perfect match with Kurt. You have power, drive, and some understanding of the kind of people we're likely to be dealing with. Kurt, on the other hand, is passionate and moral, to say nothing of being very polite, and a skilled tactician. I don't expect you to be going into battle today, but even your special powers seem to supplement each other. Kurt's powers are largely mobility-based, while yours possess great destructive might. I can't think of any reason why you'd wouldn't work well with him."

Of course, Jubilee could barely think of any reason herself, because she was so worried and desperate, but her mind was racing for some kind of concrete explanation; some reason that she could give to Xavier, which would enable her to escape the position she'd found herself in. After only a few seconds, she spoke up, but Xavier could already tell that she was mainly just upset and nervous.

"Look, professor..." Jubilee said, "I just don't think I can work with the guy. If I have to wander through New Orleans, listening to him gripe about how horrible and unholy everything around him is, I think I'm gonna go bonkers."

"If he does that, just politely ask him to stop."

"Professor, can't you...?"

"No." Xavier said sternly, both vocally and mentally at once, which shocked Jubilee. It had been years since she'd heard him do that.

"Jubilation," Xavier said, drawing a slight cringe from the teenage girl, "I have great respect for you, and for the decision you've made to protect the people closest to you from immediate threats to their existence. All of the X-men have made that choice; a choice that many people aren't mature enough to make, and anyone who can make that choice is worthy of great respect, but there's more than one reason why I assigned you to Kurt. Kurt isn't just cunning and polite. He's also compassionate, diligent, courageous, and diplomatic for the most part. In fact, aside from a few isolated instances, he seems to have lived his whole live by the bywords of self-restraint. I can't say I'd be sorry to see you learn a thing or two from him in that respect."

"Professor!" Jubilee exclaimed. His words were hardly comfortable, and he was making her very upset.

"No. If you have any more problems with this assignment, take them up with Kurt himself." Xavier replied, "Of course, you could always leave the X-men instead, if you'd rather, and go back to being a full-time student at the institute."

Jubilee was fuming internally, but there was a fine line, that she wasn't willing to cross.

"Well, you don't have to be a smart-ass about it." Jubilee muttered; which seemed to have made the Professor feel a little less tense. He nodded once, and wheeled himself back towards the doorway out, giving a few additional instructions to the X-men on the way, although Jubilee knew without even having to be told that none of those instructions were meant for her. She had a job to do; somehow getting used to the idea of working with Kurt on friendly terms.

Slowly, Jubilee trudged over to where Kurt was sitting casually on one of the padded benches near the edge of the Blackbird. He looked a little preoccupied, though he showed no signs of actually being busy with anything. It was more a sense of distraction, as if something incredibly interesting was happening elsewhere, that was keeping him from focusing on what was going on right in front of him.

"I guess we're gonna be working together today."

"Yes." Kurt replied a little sadly, "I will do my best to keep my 'griping' to a minimum, Miss Lee."

Jubilee just stared at Kurt at that point. He'd clearly heard at least some of what she'd said to Xavier, and when she looked at his ears again, she remembered why. Kurt's hearing was almost as good as Logan's.

"Yeah..." she replied, though Jubilee couldn't quite think of any motivation good enough to prompt an apology from her lips. For the moment, she knew, they were off to a bad start, and it looked like it was going to stay bad.

* * *

Only a short time later, Kurt and Jubilee were wandering through New Orleans, and although Jubilee did get a sense that Kurt was chagrined by many of the things they saw while walking through the city, he did mercifully little griping. Many of the places that Kurt and Jubilee passed by were recently-rebuilt, or repaired from the damage done to them by the flooding, and yet, many also bore clear signs of self-centeredness and sinfulness, which must have been driving Kurt insane. Still, he kept silent. Businesses were frequently like that, even in otherwise-good places; they encouraged people to think only about themselves, in the hope that they might step inside and spend their money on something they didn't really need. In fact, it sometimes seemed like the less necessary a product was, the more its ads encouraged greed, as if they were trying to compensate for something.

Of course, that was just silly. Businesses just wanted to make money, and it didn't pay to think about it too hard. In fact, it was one of Jubilee's policies not to over think anything about the world of business. She'd hardly ever heard Kurt complain about businesses, however. Maybe, she thought with a bit of hope, he might share the same policy as her in that respect. She was just about to ask him, when they heard the sounds of footsteps approaching them hurriedly from behind.

"Excuse me!" said a woman from nearby, "You look like you could help... Aaah!"

The woman's shout of alarm had clearly been prompted by Kurt's strange appearance. She hadn't seen him that well from behind, or even noticed his forked tail, but from up close, and as he'd turned around, it had become obvious that he wasn't a normal human being. Quickly, Kurt spoke up as politely as he could, in an attempt to prevent the young woman from panicking.

"Don't worry. I'd like to assist you if I can. What do you need help with? Is someone in danger?"

After getting over her initial shock, however, it seemed that the woman had realized that Kurt was still an intelligent human being; not the daemon that he closely resembled. In a few moments, the woman had started to calm down, though she still looked a little nervous over what she was about to ask.

"I... Uh... I was just wondering if you had any money. I've been having hard times lately, and I need a little something to help me get back on my feet."

Kurt's expression started to sag a little when she asked him for that. Obviously, he knew that there was nothing he could do to help bolster that woman's funds.

"I apologize, miss." Kurt said sadly, "However, although I have many good friends to assist me in times of difficulty, I have no money of my own. Mine is a life of poverty, but I will pray for you. Perhaps God can find a solution that I..."

"What about you, Miss?" the woman asked, turning to face Jubilee, and once again, Jubilee found herself being put on the spot. To the woman they'd just met, Jubilee must have looked like a foolish, naive teenager, with some extra cash to spend, however, there were only a few people in the world less naive than her. By that point in her life, Jubilee had gone so far away from naiveté, that she'd become somewhat cynical, and her view of that particular situation was, therefore, a cynical one. Jubilee suspected that the woman in front of her had already made a fortune off small donations like that, and was trying to play her for a sap.

Despite that, however, Jubilee felt Kurt's presence somewhat oppressively. She thought about telling the woman to buzz off, or interrogating her about her future financial plans, but it was too late to just wave her off, as Jubilee normally did to people asking for money. As a teenager with no real job, Jubilee rarely had enough money for herself, much less enough to give away to anybody asking for it, and yet, she found, after having listened to the woman talk for so long, standing there and watching her, that she couldn't just turn her away.

"Well, I've got about fifty cents I might not need for the phone," Jubilee replied eventually, "But I don't carry a lot of cash around when I'm... Out on business."

The woman took the money with a very brief expression of thanks, and went back towards the small group of people talking nearby. Jubilee couldn't help but feel like a sucker, but it was obvious that Kurt felt pretty bad too.

It was one of the first things about Kurt that Jubilee could really understand. After all, anybody would be upset if they'd been interrupted while talking about something that was important to them.

"That must burn you up inside." Jubilee said, sort of hoping that it really did, so that she and Kurt could share a common tendency, but a moment later, Kurt shook himself a little, as if trying to recover from a shock of some sort. When he did reply to her, there was some confusion in his voice.

"I should have been expecting that. She was rude to me, but I'm not angry with her over that rudeness. I couldn't help her in her time of need, and I don't deserve her thanks. What really upsets me is that in spite of her need, she has many friends, just like we do, whose love and guidance she could rely on. I don't know enough about her to explain why she doesn't accept their help. Maybe she's prideful, and doesn't want to feel as if she's lost some kind of contest with those people. Whatever her reasons, she's rich in friends, yet she begs from strangers. That does burn me up inside, Jubilee. It's been a long time since I've felt such tragic sorrow over the path of another person's soul."

That had done it. Jubilee was sorry she'd even brought up the matter with Kurt. It seemed, to her, as if he was flying on some kind of magic carpet through the world, or else was high on some drug, watching for some deeper meaning in the things around him, and in the process, completely missing out on all the natural feelings that normal people had. Once again, Kurt and Jubilee had to continue their search, except...

The gears in Jubilee's head were turning quickly as she thought about the robbery, which had happened quite a while ago. Whoever had committed a crime like that one and gotten away with it must have been a brilliant thief; maybe even the best. A person like that was bound to draw some attention, even if no solid evidence could be brought against them in court.

Of course, it was just a hunch that Jubilee had, but a plan was forming in her mind. It wasn't a very concrete plan, nor did it seem all that likely to succeed, but finding new evidence or testimony on a fifteen-year-old crime was definitely a wild goose chase in her eyes. What they really needed to find, Jubilee knew, was the best thief in town.

"Lady!" Jubilee exclaimed, drawing a look of surprise from Kurt, "I need to talk to you."

Kurt wasn't sure what Jubilee was getting at, and she, in turn, was completely sure that her kind of idea would never have occurred to him. He was too consumed by the desire to act purely, and do right. Kurt never would have associated with thieves. Jubilee would just have to explain her plan to him a little later.

"Listen lady." Jubilee said as she approached, "Come to think of it, I think I can make you a better deal than fifty cents."

"Really?" the woman asked, pleased.

"Sure." Jubilee replied, "The thing is, we kind of need something in exchange... It's a document, and it's in the Baton Rouge records department."

The woman's face fell when Jubilee said that.

"Miss," she said, looking stern all of a sudden, "Even supposing that I had no moral scruples, if I was that good of a thief, I wouldn't be out here begging."

Jubilee put on a show of looking disappointed, but quickly shrugged, and said "Doesn't matter. Never mind."

Then Jubilee turned to leave, and she could practically hear the struggle going on inside the young lady as she fought internally with her desire for the money that Jubilee had offered. Jubilee had only taken a few steps when the woman said "Wait a minute, miss."

"Mmm?" Jubilee asked, turning to face her one more time, "What is it? Changed your mind?"

"No." the woman replied, "I wouldn't be able to do what you're asking, but... There are people in this town who can."

"Like who?" Jubilee asked, trying to sound innocent as she asked that question.

"See, I can't just tell you." the woman said sadly, "They don't like hearing rumors about themselves, not from anybody, but if you want their help..."

For a moment, the lady paused to think things over, then said "There's procedures that we follow if someone wants to contact them. We need your name, and we pass a rumor around that you want help from a good thief. After a while, they hear the rumor, and one of them tracks you down, then brings you to meet with them. If they decide they can trust you, they consider taking your job."

"Sounds like a plan." Jubilee replied with a satisfied smile, "Here you go. Remember; my name is Jubilation Lee."

In a moment, Jubilee had put a twenty into the woman's hand, and left her with a smile on her face, and news on her lips.

As Jubilee returned to where Kurt was standing, looking a little worried, she deliberately let Jean hear her thoughts.

"Hey, Jean. This is Jubes. I got a lead, but there's a few things I'll need from the professor."

* * *

In a few hours, everything was set up. A hotel room on one side of town had been rented out under Jubilee's real name, to make her easy to find, although Kurt was staying in the room just across the hall from hers, more out of some kind of protective instinct, than because he was actually needed on the mission. Jubilee felt that his "holy one" attitude would probably be best saved for later, given who they were about to meet with.

Everything had been explained to Kurt in the interim; how Jubilee intended to contact the thief who'd broken into the records department and stolen the key document, make certain that he was the same thief, then make him an offer for the document. The whole thing was dangerous and risky, but it was the only way she could think of to track down the master thief who'd stolen all of those documents in the first place.

Obviously, Kurt was having some trouble with that. He may not have liked Jubilee much, but he knew that she was going to be in danger if she went to a meeting with a bunch of skilled thieves, and obviously, he didn't like that notion. He was still knight-like and chivalrous; looking for some way to protect the "fair damsel" from wandering into the lair of the bandits. In a way, that thought was a little refreshing, and even sweet, but in another way, Jubilee sort of wished that Kurt would knock it off. It made her uncomfortable to be treated like some kind of refined princess.

Jubilee was only at that hotel for two days before she received a reply to the rumor she'd started in the form of a note that had been slid under her door while she'd been asleep. Quickly, she read through it. It was a series of what looked like simple directions, leading her out of the building, and to the left. Jubilee had a feeling that those directions would either lead her to the thief they were looking for, or else, into a dangerous trap, but either way, it was something to do.

Quickly, Jubilee left the building and turned to the left, then kept walking in that direction for a while, hoping that Kurt wouldn't try to follow. In just a couple seconds, however, Jubilee heard the sound of someone behind her, and turned around quickly, ready to rebuke Kurt for following her. The problem was, when she turned, there was no one there.

"Glad to see I got your attention, cher." a voice said from nearby, but as hard as Jubilee looked around, she couldn't spot its source, "Don't bother looking for me. I'm here, but you won't find me. Not yet."

"Are you who I think you are?" Jubilee asked, getting a little nervous already. She hadn't counted on being unable to see her guide. It was a whole new level of weird, that she hadn't been prepared for.

"Yes," the voice replied, "but you're not the person we expected. You're so young, that I doubt you could afford our services."

"I'm a student at the Xavier Institute for the gifted." Jubilee explained, "I'm here on behalf of Professor Charles Xavier."

"Teaching doesn't bring in much profit." the voice replied, but Jubilee smiled as she replied to that.

"Teaching isn't the source of Xavier's wealth. It's just something he decided to do with his spare time."

There was a pause for a few moments, and after a short while, Jubilee heard the voice again, saying "Alright. I like the sound of that. Let me show you our meeting place. We can talk about the job there."

Jubilee didn't have much choice but to follow the strange person's directions. His accent was a little distracting as he was telling her where to go, but she understood him well enough. Jubilee was led down alleyways, through side streets, and eventually, into a much less crowded section of town. The damage had been mostly repaired in that area of the city, despite the fact that no obvious business was conducted there, nor were there any apartments. It seemed plain, to Jubilee at least, that that section of town had been repaired by privately-hired construction crews and contractors, because the entire area was composed of a few large estates. They were still soggy-looking estates, but they were clearly owned by very wealthy people. Kurt would probably have flown off the handle at the sight. In a city so besieged by need and grief, so many rich men and women still thought only about their own wellbeing, instead of helping their fellow man. Honestly, the thought didn't make Jubilee feel all that great either. She was pretty sure she wouldn't have made the same choice those people had. Faced with that much suffering every day, and having the money to help out, she never would have held back from helping them, and when Jubilee realized that about herself, she started to see the aspects in her own life that were also benevolent; the aspects that she'd refused to see that morning, though they'd been just as plain and obvious then.

Still, Jubilee pressed on through that area, and at the encouragement of the voice, onto the grounds of one of the estates, but not, she was surprised to find, up to the front door. Instead, she was taken to a smaller cabin off to one side, which still had a lot of unrepaired damage.

"In here." the voice said, so Jubilee opened the door, knowing that she'd just have to trust the person who was presumably following her unseen. In a few moments, she was inside the cabin,. which looked as shabby and badly-maintained on the inside as it had on the outside, but there didn't seem to be anyone in there; at least no one that she could see.

"Hello?" Jubilee asked, a little worried, and not at all sure what kind of situation she'd found herself in, "Is anyone here?"

"Yes." came a voice from nearby, though she couldn't tell exactly what direction it came from, "You can't see us, but all of us are here."

"Who are you?" Jubilee asked. She was a little scared at being unable to see the people around her, but just as irritated by their hesitance to reveal any useful information to her.

"There's things you don't have to know, cher." an older-sounding voice said, "Simply refer to us as the thieves guild, if you need to call us anything."

The thieves guild? It sounded so artificial, as if the people there were trying to make their group sound like some kind of ancient order, without any knowledge of what ancient orders were really like. Then again, Jubilee was equally lacking in that knowledge, so she decided not to criticize them on the naming of their little gang. After all, people who could become as invisible as that would probably have made excellent thieves.

"Now then," the older man, who sounded like their leader said, "How about if you tell us what the job is, then we decide on an appropriate price, alright?"

It was down to the negotiating, in other words. Jubilee knew that she wasn't a good negotiator, but she'd planned for that in advance. Deep down in her thoughts, she said silently, "Now professor."

Xavier didn't disappoint her. In seconds, words were coming out of Jubilee's mouth, which she hadn't thought up in her own brain; soft, diplomatic words, that were clearly intended to make the situation easier to handle.

"I guess the first thing I should do is apologize." Jubilee heard herself say, "I haven't been entirely honest with your group up to this point. I do need your services, and I am willing to keep it all secret, but the thing that I need from you isn't in any facility in Baton Rouge; at least not anymore."

Jubilee could have sworn she heard some shuffling nearby, but still, no one showed themselves in that cabin. She could tell that it was a tense moment for everyone there. Some of the thieves hidden in that cabin were worried about her; afraid that she couldn't be trusted. In a sense, she couldn't blame them for worrying, and she was very glad when the tense silence was broken by the older man's voice again.

"Go ahead."

"Fifteen years ago," Xavier said through Jubilee, "some files were stolen from the records department in Baton Rouge, including some that pertained to the Xavier Institute. At this point, it's come to our attention that they might be the only uncorrupted files of their type, and as the best thieves in the area, we hoped that you might be able to tell us who stole those files; for a fair price of course."

However, the reply of the thief leader was a big surprise to Jubilee.

"I'll tell you who stole those files at no cost, cher. It was me."

"You?" the Professor asked through Jubilee, "In that case, do you still have the files I need?"

"Well, here's the thing." the voice replied, "It seems that most of those files were needed by a client of ours. I hear he got himself arrested shortly after that, but frankly, it was one of the hardest jobs I'd ever done. I didn't want to get out of that job without a souvenir, so I made a few copies of all those files. Nobody ever found out. I think I can oblige you with the file you're looking for, if you can make it worth my while."

"I'm willing to suppose" Xavier said, through Jubilee's mouth, "that the file in question isn't worth much to you. After all, you didn't pay for it yourself."

"Yeah, but that's not the point." the older man said, "The point is, it's worth something to you. Now that I've seen how much you want this thing and why, I can't let it go for less than twelve hundred. In fact, I'd prefer if you'd make me a better offer than that."

"Very well." Xavier replied, "Fifteen hundred, but I won't go higher than that."

The voice was silent for a few more moments, then after a short chuckle, said "Alright. You got yourself a deal, cher. One of my men will deliver the file to your apartment in a storage device."

"That brings me to another thing that I wanted to discuss with you," Xavier said, surprising Jubilee. She'd thought that the file was all that they were after.

"If the file turns out to be uncorrupted, we may need the assistance of someone like yourself, in order to return it to its proper place, without anyone raising the alarm."

"You mean the records department?" the older man asked.

"No." Xavier replied, "I mean the Muir Island research facility in Scotland."

Clearly, that had gotten a reaction. Muir Island was pretty far off the beaten path for that group, who were obviously more local in their operations. After a pause of several seconds, the older man spoke again, sounding sad.

"Miss Lee," he said, "I'm too old to seek greater challenges to my skill. I might be able to break back into the records department in Baton Rouge, because I know the place well by now, but Muir Island is different. That place is too far away, and too military for my tastes. You need to speak to my heir. He has my talent in thieving, and a few other gifts as well; plus he's a younger man than I am. He might be able to help you. I think it's a fool's errand, but if he decides to make the attempt, I won't get in his way. To make it easier for you to meet with him, I'll send him as the one to deliver your document. Is that all?"

"Should I assume that we can also work out the cost of your heir's services with him?" Xavier asked.

"Yes." the older man replied, "I can't barter for a service I wouldn't be able to provide. He's nearly an adult now. It's his call."

"In that case, then yes." Xavier replied, "That's all we need."

Receiving no further replies from the hidden thieves, Jubilee turned to head back outside, feeling Xavier leave her mind as she breathed a deep sigh of relief, and rushed back towards her hotel room the way she'd come.

* * *

Of course, once back at the hotel, Jubilee had a feeling that she and Kurt were going to have another argument about the very nature of their mission. Jubilee could tell that Kurt would have preferred trying to get the thieves guild arrested, getting the files returned to their proper place. The problem was, that wouldn't have helped their case at all, and deep down inside, Kurt must have known that. Pierce and his friends had put Xavier and the X-men in a position that they couldn't get out of, except by stealing, or dealing with those who did, and although Kurt had agreed, at one time, to break the law if it was what was needed to protect his friends, that mission had pushed the limits of his loyalty substantially. He obviously felt somewhat tainted by the whole experience, though his part in it had been smaller than Jubilee's.

"Surely Moira would help us return to file to Muir Island's computers." Kurt said angrily, as he and Jubilee sat in the hotel together, "We need no help from any thief."

"Unfortunately, it's not that simple." Xavier replied telepathically from his place in the Blackbird, "Moira is a good friend of mine, but Muir Island isn't her property. The place belongs to the UK military. If she's caught tampering with the files there, it could destroy her career. We need someone who knows how to both tamper with computers, and move about undetected."

"This whole thing makes me feel filthy." Kurt muttered, but as he said that, he heard a voice from nearby, in the very same room with them.

"Anything I can help with?"

Quickly, Kurt turned to face the source of the voice, and found that, unlike the members of the thieves guild that Jubilee had met, the thief who'd arrived in Jubilee's room was allowing himself to be seen, and he was certainly an interesting sight.

The thief who'd appeared before them was rather tall and thin. His hair was short and brown, and his eyes seemed to almost glow with a dim red light from the center of each pupil. There was some type of armor covering his upper chest, and a shirt underneath that, as well as a pair of dark boots that were, like their owner, tall and slim. Even so, those boots made no sound at all when he walked, which might, in fact, have been what they were designed for; silence. He wore a belt around his waste, that seemed to be made from thick cloth, and several metal items were sewn into that belt, so that none of them could touch each other, but any of them could be drawn out by him at a moment's notice. At least one of those items was a knife, but the rest, Jubilee didn't recognize. The thief had a short, thin beard on the very end of his chin, and what looked like a single pocket attached to his shirt. There was something in that pocket, though Jubilee couldn't guess what. Whatever it was, it was small and rectangular, like a large cigarette lighter.

In every way, the man was dressed like a true thief. No item of loose clothing hung from his person, and nothing that he carried would have clanked, whooshed, or jingled at all, even if he'd done a back-flip right then and there. Jubilee still found the thief mysterious, however, because even apart from the unusual appearance of his eyes, he was the first member of the thieves guild to willingly show himself to them, and he did that without wearing any mask. Obviously, the thief's open approach to them was a rare gesture of trust; one that Jubilee hadn't been expecting.

"No." Kurt replied, after getting over his initial surprise, "I do not think you can."

"Suit yourself." the thief remarked with a broad, confident smile, "I'm here for a delivery, a payment, and another job, as I hear."

"Where would you like the money sent?" Jubilee asked as Kurt fumed silently nearby.

"Well, just send it to this guy here." the thief replied, "He'll know what to do with it."

As the thief said that, he handed Jubilee a card that had both a name, and account number on it. In seconds, the professor had seen the information through Jubilee's eyes, and relayed it to Mccoy, who'd transmitted the money with a few simple key strokes. All things considered, it would be a small sacrifice if they were successful.

"You've got the money." Jubilee said. For a moment, it looked as if the thief was listening carefully for something, but after a couple of seconds, it was clear that he believed Jubilee, and handed her the storage device that he'd been keeping in one of the slots on his belt.

"There you go." he said, "Look it over, if you want. I need to chat with somebody, but I'll be back in an hour to settle on an a good time and price for the next job."

As he said that, the man somehow opened the nearest window completely silently, slipping outside, before closing it behind himself, then just walking away after that. In some ways, the whole thing had given Jubilee the creeps, but her feelings of discontent weren't anything compared to Kurt's. Everything that had happened just then made him positively livid.

* * *

Kurt was still livid an hour later, as he sat in a chair in Jubilee's apartment. In addition to him, two other people were there in that room; Jubilee and Xavier himself, who'd decided to meet the odd thief face to face. It had been somewhat unfriendly to act through Jubilee as an intermediary up to that point, but Xavier knew that he hadn't had much choice. Jubilee had placed herself in that position without consulting him first. Even so, the time had clearly come for Xavier to deal with the matter personally. If the thieves were ever found out, his association with them might be discovered, but he was tired of letting others; even the X-men themselves, handle his problem. As long as he could meet with the thief in person, that was what he was going to do.

The thief arrived at almost the very moment he'd said he would, and seemed to recognize Xavier at once. Clearly, he hadn't been wasting his time, but had done a great deal of research on his new clients before he'd arrived.

"I wasn't sure how long it'd be before you decided to show yourself." the thief said in his typical Cajun accent, closing the window silently as he entered, "Nice to meet you, Professor. I take it you'll be making the big choices about this mission."

"Yes. That's correct." Xavier replied a little stiffly, shaking the younger man's hand, "We've had time to check the file, and I ought to thank you. It's exactly what we needed."

"I don't need thanks." the thief replied, "We got the money. That's enough for us."

"Unfortunately, the next part of the mission may not be so easy to accomplish." Xavier replied sadly, "Muir Island is a well-guarded military installation, and I'm afraid that we may be on something of a time limit."

The thief spread his arms out a little when Xavier said that, in what looked partly like a shrug, and partly like an open-armed gesture of welcome.

"I can leave right now, if you want. I'm as ready as I'll ever be."

"That might be best." Xavier replied, a half-smile spreading across his own face, "Of course, you'll be paid well for this. There are a few more things you'll need to be briefed on before we get going, however. For now, though, I just need something to call you by."

"My friends call me Robin Hood." the thief replied with a broad smile. It only took Xavier a second to understand the significance of that nickname.

"The prince of thieves." Xavier noted, drawing a gratified nod from the thief, "Is there a shorter name I can use? Of course, I could just call you Robin if you'd prefer..."

"As pretty a name as Robin is, you may as well call me Gambit instead." the man replied, still smiling, "It's short, sweet, and non-descriptive."

"You're saying that you can't afford to tell me your real name." Xavier noted with a bit of worry.

"Not just me." Gambit replied, "There's lots of folks who'd love to see me dead, and the thieves guild destroyed. I can't just go around telling my real name to people; not even clients. You know what I mean. Now you've seen my face, if you really want, you can find out my name in your spare time. Just don't let nobody know you know."

Throughout his whole description, however, Gambit didn't act as if he were worried exactly. In fact, he kept smiling, and Xavier had no way to really be sure of whether Gambit's smile sprang from simple arrogance, or whether he really had some kind of special advantage that he wasn't telling anyone about.

* * *

On the way to Muir Island in the Blackbird, Gambit was briefed on a number of important things about the mission he was undertaking. He was shown schematics of the facility, and told about Moira, who'd already been informed of what they planned to do, and would try to keep everyone busy while Gambit broke in. The real trick, of course, would be to stay unnoticed by the security cameras. Security cameras tended to be well-placed in research facilities, and rather unforgiving once they had you on video feed. Gambit just smiled through the whole briefing, however.

"I thought this job was gonna be hard." Gambit had replied with a smile, "Now you tell me we've got a lady on the inside?"

That was the time when Xavier chose to warn Gambit about Kevin; perhaps the most powerful and evil mutant of all, who was held in a closed cell in that facility. Gambit still smiled, but took the warning seriously. Shortly after that, Xavier gave Gambit his last bit of good news.

"There's one more thing you should probably know." Xavier said, wrapping up the briefing, "There's a great deal of evidence to suggest that someone else has previously managed to break in unaided, and escape undetected. Of course, we don't know how, exactly, they did it, and we don't have a lot of time to find out."

"S'aright." Gambit had replied, his impenetrable smile widening, "I prefer to find my own way in."

In the end, Gambit had leaned back in his seat, relaxing in preparation for the mission. Logan was there, and so were Kurt and Jubilee, although most of the other X-men had stayed back in New Orleans for the time being. If the Blackbird was detected and apprehended, there was no sense in all of them being brought in for questioning.

At last, however, the silence was broken. Kurt had something that he had to say.

"Thou shalt not steal."

"Pardon?" Gambit asked, looking sideways at the pointy-eared X-man. Kurt was obviously very dissatisfied, though not at the point of feeling disdain; even for a thief like Gambit.

"It's in the bible." Kurt replied, "God commands people not to covet the goods of others, and especially never to take them."

"Doesn't it also say somewhere in there not to demand interest on a loan, and to share with the poor all the time?" Gambit asked.

Kurt was very surprised that Gambit knew that much about the bible, but he nodded quickly.

"In fact," Kurt said, "It encourages people to give more than they're asked for."

"How many people do you think take that seriously nowadays?" Gambit asked, still smiling.

"Just because many choose to ignore the word of God does not make it outdated." Kurt said, his expression turning sour, "People do not determine what is right and wrong. Only God does that."

"That's not what I asked." Gambit said, turning in his seat, to look at Kurt for a moment, "You know who the Avengers are, right? Most people do nowadays. When I first heard a new team was being formed, I was scared out of my socks, because I was afraid they'd just wind up enforcing the law, instead of doing the right thing. The thing is, it seems like they've actually been helping people with their powers; not just helping to keep the laws running. I feel pretty good about that. You want to know why?"

Kurt wasn't sure he did, but Gambit was clearly determined to continue.

"It's because you're right." Gambit said, "People can't decide what's right and wrong. When they try to, they create laws. Laws can be good, of course. They can help people control themselves, and be more civilized around others, but the fact of the matter is, laws are basically set up by politicians and judges, politicians and judges are almost always rich, and more rich people give them money and support all the time. Still, when it comes down to it, rich people can get away with anything, as long as they got the right kind of lawyer. So you see, laws are basically what rich people want poor people to do. As I said, they're not bad, but they're not God either."

"So you think that gives you the right to steal whatever you want?" Kurt asked, but as soon as he asked that question, he could tell that something about it had angered Gambit quite a bit. His smile had vanished completely, and a furious scowl had replaced it. It was the first time that Kurt had ever seen him truly lose his composure.

"That's not what I said either." Gambit replied, slowly and testily, "If you want to know my philosophy on thieving, that's one thing. I'm not too humble to talk about it. But if you don't want to know about me, then don't ask."

Gambit's words cut deep, but not just because he was angry. Kurt had been treating the actions of others with somewhat-vocal disapproval since before he'd arrived in New Orleans. The bible did, after all, contain numerous examples of holy men and women who were vocal in expressing the will of God, and later chapters of the bible expressed the need for courage, in speaking the word of God to others. Very often, sinners and unbelievers sought to defend clearly immoral actions with the words "don't judge me," and Kurt had no problem at all confronting them with the fact that they'd sinned. He'd been confronting people with that for so long, however, that, he realized, he was starting to go overboard.

To judge something means simply to form an opinion of its worth. People had to do that to protect themselves from sin, but the bible also spoke out against judgment in other ways, and Kurt had been ignoring those recently. Though Jesus had been quick to denounce certain kinds of actions as being innately sinful, he hadn't jumped to the conclusion that all those who committed them were evil on all fronts. In fact, he'd always sought a means of convincing people to repent of their sins; to condemn the sin, but not the sinner.

Recently, Kurt had started to lose track of that distinction, and it had, he realized, become a problem during his discussion with Gambit. He knew that Gambit was a burglar and a thief, and because of that, he'd assumed that Gambit was also a man of no morals at all. Kurt had rendered his judgment upon a sin, and from that, he'd passed judgment on the man responsible as well. One, he realized sadly, was according to the will of God, while the other wasn't. Kurt felt pretty rotten about himself as he contemplated that. It was the job of every Christian to make known the will of God, but not to make negative assumptions about people based on that. He'd strayed from the path, and although some part of him wanted to blame that on Gambit and New Orleans, Kurt knew that the fault was really his. He was still a sinner himself, just as the bible said, and although it was still his duty to speak out against sinfulness, he had, in the meantime, a problem of his own to overcome.

* * *

Gambit had tried to look as if he was just relaxing after he'd gotten over his anger at the young mutant boy with the tail, but he'd really been going over the briefing details in his mind over and over, to make absolutely certain that he wouldn't forget them. When the Blackbird was finally within range of Muir Island, Gambit had given the two girls in the jet a short wink, just to thrill them a little, then leapt from the plane's door to the wing, then from the wing to the edge of the building, where he could get a firm grip, but it was also one of the places where the video surveillance machines wouldn't be able to see him. Sliding down the building's slanted edge very carefully, Gambit checked to make sure that he still had the small storage device in his belt, then started to feel around for loose edges in the building's construction.

Obviously, Gambit knew, any attempt to get into the facility would involve dislodging one of the windows. The doors were all watched by cameras, so Gambit's best bet would be to find a loose plate in the outer edge of the building, then find some way to remove the nearest window gradually. It was certainly a far more heavy-duty operation than he was used to, but that didn't mean he wasn't up to the task.

It only took Gambit a few seconds to find the nearest window, but as hard as he searched, the whole area around it seemed to be very well fastened into place. It wasn't a solid plate of metal, fortunately, but loosening it gradually wasn't an option.

"Oh, well..." Gambit thought to himself, removing one of his gloves, "Here goes."

* * *

About three hours passed before anything was heard from Gambit, during which time the Blackbird remained at a safe cruising altitude above the base, just far enough up, and silent enough to remain undetected for the time being, yet still within range of the private transmission channel they were leaving open for Gambit. At last, a single, short beep emerged from the Blackbird's speakers, and that was the signal they'd been waiting for.

Slowly, the Blackbird descended back towards the planned rendezvous point, opening the door for their partner, and Gambit was aboard only a short time later, looking somewhat out of breath.

"Did you succeed?" Xavier asked, as the door was closed, and Gambit stepped further into the plane, "Is the file in the Muir Island computer?"

Gambit held up one hand for a moment, as if he was trying encourage Xavier to wait until he could calm down a little, before attempting to give him the news. Obviously, something had happened to him in there that had thrown him off. Finally, however, he spoke.

"Yeah, it's in there, and nobody saw me."

"Excellent." Xavier replied, then turning back towards the cockpit, he said "Let's go home."

* * *

No words were spoken about money on the entire ride back to New Orleans. There was, understandably, no rush to settle that aspect of things, although Gambit could probably have pressed the matter if he'd really wanted to. However, he was still too exhausted to even talk about work. It surprised him, therefore, when he realized that he had the energy to reply when Kurt spoke up again.

"Good work." Kurt said, looking a little sheepish.

Gambit looked at him sideways for a few moments, then nodded, and made his reply.

"Yeah. It was. Maybe the best I ever done."

"I should apologize." Kurt said at once, "I made an assumption about you, because I knew that you were a thief, and I was wrong in that. If you'd still like to tell me about yourself, I'll listen. I promise not to pass judgment this time, until I've heard the entire story."

That cheered Gambit up a little. With a smile, he leaned back in his seat, and started explaining himself.

"I was born and raised in New Orleans by the thieves guild." Gambit explained, "When I was young, they thought I was a child of destiny; meant to save the thieves guild, and maybe even reunite it with our bitter rivals in the guild of assassins, so they taught me everything I know, or at least, all the skills I'm good at; sneaking, demolition, picking locks, moving silently, and such like... That's what I was always good at more than anything else. They're good skills. They take time to learn, and if you ask me, anybody who can master them deserves to make a living off them. That's always been my philosophy."

"Of course, real jobs that need those kinds of skills are a little hard to find." Gambit continued, "Just about all they were good for was thieving, so I decided that I had to stick with the thieves guild for a while. Ever since then, I've got myself in trouble a bunch of times. I never got caught, or anything like that, but I sometimes turned down a job when I didn't think the client was in the right. Most of the thieves guild don't much care whether the client's right or wrong, so long as they pay good money. For me, it's the other way around. I gotta make a living somehow, but I'd rather do jobs like the one you folks gave me; where I'm helping to set things right. That's why the folks back home sometimes call me Robin Hood. Only thing is, they don't usually mean it in a good way. They don't see the reason why I can't steal for everybody like they do. That's my story."

"There are a few things that I still don't understand." Kurt replied carefully, a little ashamed to find himself liking Gambit, in spite of his sins, "Why would the thieves guild consider you a child of destiny? Was it your eyes?"

"Right on the first try." Gambit said, his smile broadening, "Of course, my eyes were a real sign of something, but it wasn't destiny. You see, I'm just like you. I'm a mutant."

That thought had never occurred to Kurt, though it did explain how Gambit could get into places where no one else could.

"What are your mutant powers?" Kurt asked, amazed, "Invisibility? Mind-reading? Enhanced speed?"

"Nah." Gambit replied, "Nothing so big and impressive. My powers are agility and good balance, and sometimes, I have an easy time convincing people to see things my way. I have another power too, but I don't use it much. How about you? What's your specialty?"

"I have enhanced hearing, agility, and the ability to stick to solid surfaces, and see in the dark." Kurt replied, "I can also teleport from one place to another, and more recently, I've discovered that my body becomes invisible in shadows."

Gambit gave an impressed-sounding whistle at that point.

"Damn." Gambit muttered, "Some people get all the breaks. With powers like that, I'd really be able to do things."

"Like what?" Kurt asked, a little confused, "What would you use my powers for?"

"Well, I think the first thing I'd do would be to poof myself into the assassin's guild vault. I know just where it is, but it's locked up too tight, even for somebody like me, and they've usually got guards. In there, I'd take the knife of ceremony. It's more art than weapon, but it's important to the assassins. Once I took it, I'd probably just toss it someplace where they wouldn't be likely to find it. Then, when they found it missing, they'd start accusing each other of betraying the guild and..."

Gambit paused for a moment, as he thought about the chaos that would almost definitely ensue under those kinds of circumstances, but he was still smiling as he continued.

"At the end of it all, even if they found the knife, I don't think there'd be as many killers in the world."

The words were spoken wistfully, but Kurt noticed an intensity of purpose behind them. Gambit was definitely asking him for something, but Kurt didn't dare to bring the subject up until they were safely back on the ground in New Orleans.

* * *

Kurt suspected, of course, that Gambit knew more about him, and about Xavier than he was letting on. It was possible that Gambit was just trying to trick Kurt, and perhaps the others, into doing something truly nasty. However, there was something about Gambit, regardless of his sins, that Kurt was starting to trust, and even like. Maybe Gambit knew how many of Xavier's associates were capable of listening in on a conversation from several rooms away, but even if he didn't, he certainly seemed to be acting prudently; not pressing the matter of what he wanted accomplished, as the Blackbird landed near New Orleans, and he exited the plane, promising to be back for the money within a couple of hours. That was something that Kurt, for one, found suspicious. After all, what was to stop them from taking off without paying him? It wasn't as if he could take legal action against them if they tried to cheat him. Of course, it was possible that he simply trusted Xavier enough by that point, but Kurt found that a little unlikely too. It seemed more likely that Gambit really had been asking Kurt for something and was hoping that Kurt would meet him in town, just in time to say yes.

Kurt still felt very hesitant to assist Gambit with anything that he had planned, but he couldn't just leave things like that. He had to know more about why Gambit wanted his help so badly.

Trying to keep to the shadows, so that no one would see him, Kurt followed Gambit at what he hoped was a safe distance. In the end, Gambit turned down a side street, and entered a small building, that was about the size of a subway diner. There was no trace anywhere on that building of the loud, flashy signs typically seen on commercial dining establishments; just a small, cardboard sign in one window, that read "The Little Dog's Laugh." It didn't seem obvious what the building was for, but then, it didn't make much difference either. Kurt straightened up, and followed Gambit inside, only a second or two later.

One of the benefits of being a mutant; at least for Kurt, was that it had been a long time since he'd been afraid of entering a public building, no matter how seedy it looked. Typical crime was something that few mutants had any reason to fear, much less a master thief like Gambit, who clearly knew most of the local criminals by name. Kurt, however, wasn't scared of any of the people in that place. Some looked simply scruffy, while others looked very unscrupulous, or even openly-hostile, but Kurt had been through Limbo and back again. Nothing about those kinds of people could scare him anymore. Quickly, Kurt took a seat across from where Gambit was sitting, without being invited to do so, though Gambit clearly wasn't bothered by it. If anything, his smile seemed to have broadened since Kurt had sat down.

"I know you want something from me." Kurt said sternly, "Why? Why do you want my help?"

Gambit's smile at that point was very convincing. He was obviously pleased with how things were going up to then. Even so, what he wanted to talk to Kurt about was sensitive, and he couldn't afford to be ratted on by any bystanders.

"Jessie!" Gambit exclaimed, drawing the attention of a middle-aged bartender who stood nearby, "My friend and I need a word in private."

Jessie looked Kurt up and down in some surprise, swallowed hard, then said, "You go ahead in, and lock it from the inside like usual, but if I were you, I wouldn't try to make bargains with this one. You might be biting off more than you can chew."

"I'll take my chances." Gambit replied, playing along. Clearly, Jessie had mistaken Kurt for someone else.

In just a moment, Gambit had led Kurt into a secluded room, near the back of the dive, with only one doorway out; the one they'd come in by. He was still smiling as he locked it, but a somber air hung around him in spite of that.

"You want to help me with my little plan?" Gambit asked through his large, persistent grin.

"I didn't say that," Kurt replied, "but I wanted to know more about it."

"Well, there's only so much I can tell you if you're not sure you're on board." Gambit replied, but Kurt wasn't in the mood for that kind of nonsense.

"If I ask you a question that you can't answer, just tell me that."

"Deal." Gambit replied.

"Will it involve stealing?" Kurt asked.

"Only if we do it right." Gambit replied; just the sort of reply that Kurt found a little irritating.

"Will we have to kill anyone?" Kurt asked.

"Nah." Gambit replied, "In fact, it might just save a bunch of lives."

"You're really expecting me to help you get that knife, aren't you?" Kurt asked, already feeling guilty. He knew that no matter what choice he made, he was going to feel a little bad about it. Gambit, however, shook his head. Obviously, he considered that too much information.

"You're saying this could really save people?" Kurt asked, a little confused, and somewhat upset too, over being put in that situation at all, "Damaging the assassins' guild and preventing them from killing? Is that the reason why the thieves guild hates them so much; just because the assassins kill people?"

"This job's got nothing to do with the thieves guild." Gambit replied, his smile fading again, "That's the second bad assumption you made about me today. I work with the thieves guild for a living, but I'm not married to them. I think you really wanted to ask if that was the real reason I wanted to take the assassins down a peg."

"Is it?" Kurt asked, without any further hesitation or visible regret. In that instance, there hadn't really been anything wrong or hurtful about Kurt's assumption, and he wasn't going to apologize for it. He just wanted Gambit to explain himself.

"I steal for a living." Gambit said, as if dodging the subject, "I do it 'cause if I didn't, I wouldn't be good at much of anything. It's just about all I know how to do, and the thieves guild gets me the clients I need. As a guild, we're bound to a loyalty to other members, and a disdain for the assassins. Our two guilds have been at each others throats since before my dad was born. Thing is, if there was a really good chance for me to make a living without the guild, I'd probably jump ship right away. I got no loyalty to the thieves guild, an I got not real hate for the assassins. Problem is, they kill people for contracts, and most of those contracts come from rich folks and crime lords, who don't want things traced back to them. To me, that just ain't right. I've been looking for some way to really mess up the assassins for a while now, and I think that if we work together; you and me... I think we can. In my eyes, whatever's bad for the assassins is good for ordinary guys like us. So, you up for a little fun?"

To Kurt, the whole idea was upsetting, but even so, he did have a choice to make, and he'd have to make it quickly. Gambit's offer wasn't going to stand forever.

* * *

Kurt was back at the Blackbird within a couple of hours, but it took Gambit about an hour longer than that to return, and when he did, he was back to his old self; smiling conspicuously as he went with Xavier into the back section of the jet, presumably to talk about money. Once the door to that section closed, however, Gambit's grin grew a little wider, and Xavier had a feeling that he'd placed himself in a somewhat bad position.

"If people ever found out I broke into that place, I'd be a legend overnight." Gambit said.

"Be that as it may, they mustn't find out." Xavier replied, "If they do, this whole trip would mean nothing. I need to be able to use the Muir Island data as proof that my files were corrupted, and I can't do that if people suspect that Muir Island was the one tampered with."

Gambit was silent for several seconds, but Xavier knew what the situation was like. Gambit suspected, perhaps, that Xavier wasn't as rich as he was pretending to be, and that paying Gambit what the job was worth could compromise the future of his school. Still, Gambit didn't look upset by that, as if he was already satisfied, and just wanted Xavier to admit the truth aloud. In the end, Xavier decided to just come clean, because there didn't seem to be any other way for the discussion to proceed.

"I can pay you for your work, of course," Xavier said, "but I'm afraid it's bound to be less than you might get for a normal job."

Gambit's smile took on a wistful appearance when he heard that, but he still didn't seem upset. In fact, a moment later, he shrugged casually, and straightened up a little.

"It's no big deal." Gambit said at last, "I don't need more pay for this. I already got what I really wanted. What I got today, millions of dollars couldn't have bought."

"Wait a minute." Xavier said, straightening up in his seat, "You didn't steal anything from Muir Island, did you?"

"I only stole one thing today," Gambit replied, "and it wasn't from Muir, or from you. Talk to your students if you want to find out the rest. They'll explain it if they think you'll understand. As for me, I'm willing to just call us even and leave it at that."

Then, just like that, Gambit opened the door, and headed back out into the main section of the plane. However, just as it seemed that he was about to leave, something occurred to him, and he turned back to face Xavier again.

"One more thing before I go, though." he said, still smiling, and in a moment, he'd reached into his pocket, and pulled out a playing card. It was the king of clubs, which was probably intended to have a symbolic meaning.

"If you people are who I think you are, and if your school is for who I think it is," Gambit continued, facing Xavier as he spoke, "you might need my help again sometime. If things work out, be sure to let me in on the fun."

As he spoke, the card in Gambit's hand started to glow slightly, then shine bright light, then a moment later, the light dimmed again, and Gambit put the card back in his pocket, leaving Xavier speechless. Having never read Gambit's mind, Xavier hadn't been certain that he'd had mutant powers. Suddenly, there was no denying it anymore, and that was a little surprising by itself. Enough, in fact, that when Gambit left the Blackbird, all eyes were on him.

Of course, Gambit's exit had been showy and stylish. Both Jubilee and Nightcrawler knew enough about him by that point to expect that sort of thing from him. However, in a sense, each had also learned a bit more about themselves, and about one another, and Jubilee was determined not to let that sit the way it was.

"Kurt..." Jubilee whispered just loud enough for his sensitive hearing to pick it up, "Tell me the truth. You helped Gambit steal something, didn't you?"

"Things are not as simple as that." Kurt replied, feeling a little confused and irritated, "Sometimes, hard decisions must be made for the greater good."

"Call it what you want," Jubilee replied, "but it sounds to me like you're surrendering your idealism a little."

"Not at all." Kurt replied, more irritation than ever in his voice, "These kinds of decisions may be complicated, and they may lead us into actions that are generally considered to be wrong, but so long as I continue to act out of love and compassion, and so long as I do what I can to protect the weak, the innocent, and the oppressed, without ignoring or attacking anyone's rights, my actions are still good. I can defend both my actions, and my idealism with that philosophy, and also use the same standard to continue condemning moral relativism, and excessively-permissive modernism. Believe me; that's all I've thought about since I got back. I, for one, need justification for my actions. I'd never be able to feel clean otherwise."

Jubilee felt a little awkward when Kurt said that. She'd pegged him with a point of logic that, if it hadn't proved him wrong, had at least been an annoyance to him, and in that sense, she felt that she'd claimed some manner of victory over him. However, after all was said and done; after everything they'd both gone through that day, Jubilee didn't want to alienate Kurt any more than she had to. It wasn't worth winning a token victory against Kurt if he had to feel miserable to make it work, so Jubilee decided to tell Kurt the one thing that she thought might cheer him up.

"Actually..." Jubilee said, pausing for only a moment, to think her words over, "there's something that happened to me on Magneto's asteroid that I never told anyone about. I had to fight one of Magneto's Allies, and for a while, it seemed like she had me beat. Her mutant powers just absorbed all the energy from my bombs. I wasn't really sure what to do at the time, and I was really tempted to lose hope then; to just give up and admit defeat. I think there's only one reason why I didn't give up then. It wasn't that I thought the X-men were depending on me, and I wasn't really thinking about anyone else at the time. I've always kind of been a fighter, and when I get into a fight like that, it's really just me and the enemy that I think about."

"The reason I couldn't give up" Jubilee continued as Kurt seemed to have taken a slight interest, "was that I knew how violent I was, and I wanted to prove to myself that that violence wasn't just emotional, and wasn't necessarily pointless. I wanted to know that there was some kind of bigger purpose for my... Well..."

"You wanted a means of justifying your sinfulness." Kurt replied with a genuine-looking smile.

"You're not gonna get all holier-than-thou again, are you?" Jubilee asked, growing irritated again.

"No." Kurt replied, "In fact, I'm happy for you. Recognizing the need for justification is one of the most important steps on the path to righteousness."

"Well, let's not go overboard." Jubilee said, "I just said it got me out of a scrape. I might never feel that way again."

"That's your choice to make, of course." Kurt replied, frowning again, "What you told me just now was amazing, but if you're saying that you don't have the ability to amaze me again, I suppose that I will just have to take your word for it."

"That old tactic." Jubilee said, recognizing the method that Kurt was using. Clearly, he was using a form of modified reverse psychology on her.

"What makes you think that's going to work on me anyway?" Jubilee asked.

"It's because deep down inside, we all have the need for justification." Kurt replied, "Even the criminal guilds we've just encountered lived by a code of honor, in the hopes of justifying themselves. I don't think you have the ability to ignore your desire for justification, and that's what you would need to do in order to go back to your old way of life; the one you had before coming to the institute."

Once again, Kurt's great confidence in his convictions was as plain as the tail attached to his spine. It was a trait that Jubilee had always found infuriating before. However, as the Blackbird took off, heading back for the New York area, Jubilee noticed, to her surprise, that she wasn't feeling the least bit angry with Kurt. In fact, for some reason, she felt almost like laughing.

* * *

Xavier had planned out the rest of the afternoon in his mind by the time the Blackbird had landed in its hangar at the institute. He was in something of a hurry to get back upstairs, replace some corrupted files, and make a few phone calls to a lawyer he thought he could trust, when he realized that something was wrong. There wasn't any visible damage to the mansion, but there was a feeling of tension and worry hanging over the whole place, and someone was rushing towards Xavier's position, as he and the X-men headed for the hangar exit. It was Sheila Ramsey. Xavier didn't intend to read Sheila's thoughts, but he could tell that there was a deep urgency to her feelings; a panic even. That much was impossible to ignore. As soon as the hangar door opened, she was standing on the other side, with a look of semi-anger on her face.

"Xavier." Sheila said irritably, "Something horrible happened while you were gone."

Xavier had been able to anticipate part of it, however.

"Is this to do with Anna?" he asked.

"Yes." Sheila replied, "But as far as I can tell, she didn't cause it. I thought it was questionable trying to hold her here anyway, but if having her here is putting the students in danger, we should..."

"Sheila." Xavier said slowly, interrupting her, "Please calm down. Tell me what happened."

"If you go to her containment cell," Sheila replied a little angrily, "you'll see it for yourself. It's right there on the wall."

Though he wanted to resolve the issue of his ownership of the Institute as quickly as possible, Xavier couldn't afford to ignore Sheila's suggestion. Without her help, he might never have been able to make the school a functional reality to begin with, and he did owe her quite a bit for being willing to put up with so many different mutants, as well as the little squad that he called the X-men. Charles Xavier knew that he had to check out the disturbance at once.

When Xavier arrived at the containment cell, only a couple of minutes later, however, he discovered that numerous students had also found their way down there, and they were all staring at a large section of the wall, where the metal seemed to have been charred, and cut through pretty sharply, as if with the end of a flaming sword. Xavier had never seen anything quite like it, but what was really disturbing was the message that had been written into the wall in that manner. In charred gouges in the wall, words were written in clear English.

"I shall have what is mine."

* * *

To Be Continued...


	25. X Men 9: Stalker

X-Men Neo

Issue 9

"Stalker"

* * *

Charles Xavier had been running both a high school, and one of the most powerful strike forces on Earth for years. Those kinds of tasks tended to be stressful to most people, but Xavier had managed to maintain a fairly stable composure throughout the entire time that he'd been the headmaster of the Xavier Institute. However, he was nearly making up for it that afternoon, as he held a telephone receiver in one hand. Xavier's face was scarlet.

"What do you mean by that?" Xavier demanded from the person at the other end of the phone.

The reply wasn't encouraging.

"I don't care." Xavier exclaimed angrily, "You told me before any of this even started that you'd be honored to take my case. What changed?"

Again, the reply was infuriating.

"You should have thought about that before you signed our agreement." Xavier replied furiously.

After a few more seconds, Xavier exclaimed, "Fine, then, but if you plan to abandon our agreement, you abandon it completely. You certainly won't be getting paid!"

With that, Xavier slammed the receiver back into place. He was very, very steamed about the whole affair. It shouldn't have been so complicated to find a good lawyer, and defend his property from the people who were trying to steal it out from under him. The facts were plain enough to any reasonable person. Unfortunately, most judges and juries could be bought, and as Xavier was learning, the vast majority of attorneys were the same way. For the right price, they were willing to drop his case like a hot potato.

In that respect, Xavier was in a very bad position. His opponents in his struggle to retain legal control over his own property were Donald Pierce and Harry Leland, and it was possible that others were involved as well. However, even if it was just the two of them, that was bad enough. Each was wealthier than Xavier by several times, which meant that their ability to survive complicated legal battles, and generally dominate the entire legal system vastly exceeded Xavier's own. As a clear indication of just how bad things had gotten, the man that Xavier had just hung up on had been the fifth attorney that he'd been attempting to get legal assistance from. It had only taken the man a single day to realize that Xavier's opponents were quite capable of both bribes and threats, each to a great extent, and he hadn't taken Xavier's case, despite having agreed to it at first.

Of course, Xavier had made a pretty loud ruckus when he'd been reacting to that attorney's decision to jump ship, and he knew that at least two people in the mansion were guaranteed to have overheard his anger and desperation; maybe more. He didn't like having to give bad news to his students, or to anyone else that he cared about, but he couldn't keep such important things from them anymore. The X-men deserved to know what was going on. As hard as they'd worked, and as much as they'd risked, it looked like they were on the verge of losing their fight with Pierce and Leland.

However, just as Xavier was about to send a telepathic message to the X-men, to summon them to his study, he noticed a very strong thought; so strong that it occupied his full attention for a moment.

"Not yet, Chuck. Talk with me about it first."

Xavier sighed, but Logan had really gone out of his way in the past to help, and he deserved that much consideration at least, even if talking with Logan about the problem only made it worse.

"Alright." Xavier replied to Logan telepathically, "Meet me in my study at once."

Logan, it seemed, took that request seriously, because he entered Xavier's study less than half a minute later.

"What's this about, Chuck?" Logan asked, closing the doors as he stepped inside.

"Logan..." Xavier replied, "The X-men have done a lot of hard work, to help support me and this school, and I don't like to admit defeat, but even in spite of all the work they've done, I don't see any way that we can get out of this without a loss of some kind. Leland and Pierce are cutting me off at every turn. I can't even get a handhold into the legal system."

"There's always the direct approach." Logan said icily, but Xavier just shook his head.

"I don't want to resolve this with force, Logan. I'm already a thief and a kidnapper. I have no desire to become a murderer as well. In spite of the vows I've made to the X-men, I can't cross that line."

"So that's it?" Logan asked suspiciously, "You're just giving up? That's not like you, Chuck. Why would you even call the X-men if all you wanted was to give them rotten news like that?"

"You've seen through me again, I'm afraid." Xavier replied, though he didn't smile. He didn't dare. The decisions that he was faced with were too serious and grave for that.

"When Mister Edison first told me about this danger to my school and my property, he said that I'd be faced with two choices; to either submit to the administration of Pierce and Leland, or to move my school to some other building. Either way, half of the connections I've made at this school would probably fall to pieces, or at the very least, suffer horrible confusion, and nearly lose track of me. However, I'm starting to see that there is a third option; one that Edison hadn't taken into consideration when he spoke with me before. I can attempt to make telepathic contact with Doctor Strange."

Logan's whole face flushed almost at once.

"Huh?" Logan asked, unwilling to believe what was being said.

"Strange is not only a powerful sorcerer, but the leader of the Avengers as well. They have the backing of Anthony Stark, who could, I suspect, help us in this situation. Also, I believe that at least one member of their team is an attorney, and they might also know someone who can unravel the mystery of who intruded into the mansion a week ago, and wrote the threat against Anna on the wall."

"Chuck..." Logan said, exasperated, "These are the Avengers you're talking about. Anna pretty much tore apart the first team, and we've got her downstairs right now. Plus, Strange doesn't even know you're a mutant. If you try to send a mental message to him, he'll realize immediately, and if you plan on bringing a detective in here, you're asking to be linked to the X-men. Didn't any of that occur to you? It's not an option, Chuck."

"Yes, Logan." Xavier replied sadly, "I've had time to consider all of those factors. Making contact with Strange would definitely put me, the X-men, and my entire school at the mercy of the Avengers, and it would put Anna in no small danger too, but at the moment, we're at the mercy of Pierce and Leland instead. I'd prefer to place my fate in the hands of the Avengers, rather than into the clutches of those two, who've gone to such lengths to seize control over my school, and my students. For me, at least, it's an option worth considering, but you're right to say that it puts us all at risk. That's why I don't feel like I can make that sort of choice until I've consulted the X-men about it. This kind of decision is very dangerous, for them as well as for me. It could put them all at great risk if the Avengers choose to bring charges against the X-men for the laws we've broken."

"It's a stupid idea, Chuck." Logan replied angrily, "The X-men have always been seen as troublemakers in the past, and I can guarantee you, the Avengers aren't going to take pity on us; especially not now, when we've got their worst enemy in our basement. Unless..."

Suddenly, realization dawned on Logan's face, and he started to flush a little again.

"You're not thinking of using her as a peace offering, are you?"

"The thought had crossed my mind." Xavier replied grimly, "I don't have any desire to sacrifice anyone, and I don't really think the Avengers would kill her, but she may have been placed into our grasp for a reason. I'd prefer to be able to benefit from her time here, given how little progress she's made in her reformation. If the Avengers demand it, I will surrender her to them, so long as they can provide a better prison for her. However, regardless, if their plan is to kill her, I'd prefer to die myself, rather than let that happen."

Logan's face was turning a deeper red, as Xavier said those things, but like it or not, there was nothing either of them could do to escape that difficult choice. All they could do was open up that choice to the others who deserved to take part in it.

"X-men," Xavier said telepathically, "Please meet me in my study as soon as possible. We have an important decision to make."

* * *

Anna drifted into consciousness again, just as she had numerous times over the last week and a half. Her thoughts were a jumbled mess, but that was becoming the norm. Something about her imprisonment was affecting her. It might, of course, have just been the drugs, but Anna suspected that it was more than that.

Although her thoughts had been somewhat muddled in the time she'd spent in that cell, Anna hadn't just stopped thinking. In fact, her thoughts had been distressingly intense and dark. There hadn't been much clarity to them, and it was hard for her to sustain any anger against her captors. However, the same wasn't true for herself. As she'd dwelled in that cell, Anna had gradually lost the will to fight against her own feelings, and what had emerged from those feelings had been a deep revulsion, and self-loathing, the likes of which she'd only experienced once before.

At the time, Anna had assumed that the experience had been Xavier's doing, but it was quickly becoming obvious that Xavier hadn't, in fact, used his abilities to attack her when she'd invaded the mansion before. He'd merely shown her the side of herself that she'd spent so long trying to cover up and ignore.

In the past, everything had been fairly simple for Anna. She had power, and she was going to get more. She had to follow through with the plan, gaining power over the world, and then just have a good time for the rest of her life. It was the mentality that was most prevalent; even among humans, and it was the one that Raven had taught her to appreciate. Anna had just been following that mentality to its natural conclusion; the quest for power and fun taken to its greatest extreme by the one person who had an easier time acquiring power than anyone else in the world.

However, when Raven's plan had collapsed into ruin, so had Anna's. Anna's drive to obtain power and fun was only as great as it was because Raven had lied to her. She'd told Anna that the only goal that mattered was ensuring that mutants ascended to power over the world, and that if the brotherhood ever accomplished that, then that accomplishment would have a much larger meaning than simple mutant powers could ever have, and would make them all happy. As Anna had started to doubt Raven's word about that, both of their lives had lost their purpose, and as such, each of them had lost some of their drive.

Even so, Anna had continued to take her own path, trying her best to live her life and have fun, but it wasn't working, and she couldn't be sure why that was. The question had produced, in her, thoughts of whether her failure to conquer the world for mutants really was the source of her discontent. If so, then Raven had been right all along. However, Anna doubted that somewhat. No one had ever managed to conquer the world completely, so there was no way that Raven could have known whether that would make Anna happy or not.

Still, Anna had enough power that no one could really get in her way, and that was, she'd convinced herself, enough. She had all the power that she needed, and she could engage in all the fun activities that she might ever want to experience, completely free of worries about being interrupted, or forced by others into a different life direction. She was in charge of her own destiny; a very rare fate indeed.

Despite all of that, however, Anna had started to feel pretty rotten during her time alone. At first, she'd assumed that rotten feeling was due to loneliness. Others might have just ignored the feeling completely, but with the wisdom of Hank Pym and Thor, she knew that she couldn't do that. That feeling was a part of herself, and to allow a part of oneself to gain strength unnoticed was, according to Thor, a recipe for disaster. Apparently, his half-brother Loki had frequently tricked people into turning against themselves in that manner; by causing an aspect of themselves to gain strength and eventual dominance through a magic spell. Anna didn't think that Loki was responsible for how she felt, but she didn't want to lose control of herself either.

Unfortunately, Anna hadn't been able to pin down exactly what it was that had been making her feel so bad. Xavier claimed that she had some kind of darkness inside of her, that she was using to hide from the truth. It was possible that that darkness, or even the truth itself, was prompting her feelings of misery, but if so, how could she get the feelings to stop? Anna had continued to wonder than over the course of her first four days in that cell, under the Xavier Institute.

Very soon after her arrival in the Institute, however, Anna had felt her fear returning as well. The message that had been burned into the wall near her cell was obviously a warning to her, though she couldn't tell who that warning was from, or why they'd chosen to send her a message in precisely that way. However it had happened, Anna hadn't seen who was responsible. She'd been unconscious while the message had been written, so she hadn't caught even a glimpse of the person responsible for it. It was irritating, and a little terrifying, but Anna was stuck in that cell. She'd reiterated to numerous people, including Professor Xavier, that she hadn't seen who'd written that message, and after a while, the questioning had stopped, and Anna had been left alone to worry in solitude.

Midway through Anna's fifth day in that prison, the X-men still showed no signs of releasing her. She wasn't surprised by that point, and was too heavily-drugged to be disappointed. She'd expected her day to be a lonely one, with only enough human contact to deliver her bare-bones meals. However, just after Anna had finished lunch, she realized that there was someone just outside of her cell.

The person hadn't been there a second before, and had seemed to appear in a simple flash of light. She was clearly a mutant, and made no secret of that, but Anna had never seen her before. She was in her late teens, had long, blond hair, and was about medium height for a person of her age. She also seemed to be dressed in some kind of light armor, though it didn't inhibit her range of motion at all, and a gemstone hung on a thin chain around her neck. Anna barely thought anything of the mutant girl at first, but as the blond-haired mutant drew closer to her cell, Anna could see something in her eyes; something that Thor would have recognized. Anna saw in those eyes the fire of a killer so ferocious that nearly everything else about her; her personality, hopes, and dreams, had all needed to wrap around that central, murderous intent, in order to remain attached to her at all. Anna knew just what Thor would have thought of such a person, because she heard his voice in her head, as soon as the girl had appeared.

"This one knows no joy. She is no warrior, but a weapon. Though weapons may learn to fight, as a warrior does, only a warrior earns the enjoyment of victory, and the delight of conquering a worthy foe. Only a warrior can understand the passion and joy of what life truly is, after having faced death in battle. Treat her with neither envy nor fear. She is no kind of warrior at all."

"I've heard that you were once very powerful." the blond girl said curiously.

"Ah still have all mah powahs." Anna replied a little testily, "Ah haven't heard anything about you, though."

"I would prefer not to tell the story of my teenage years to anyone," the girl said, "but you can call me Magik for now."

"Charming." Anna replied, though her words seemed to have incensed the blond girl very effectively.

"I'm not charming." Magik said angrily, "I'm a fearful ruler. I conquer and control by force."

"Ah." Anna replied with a smirk, "For a minute, ah thought ah was gonna get bored. So what did you want with me anyway, huh?"

Magik was clearly still angry, but she spoke quickly and urgently.

"I want to know more about you. You lived your life without fear of upsetting others, and because of that, your struggle to seize power was unimpeded by sentiment. Tell me your secret."

"First tell me yours." Anna replied.

It was obvious that Magik was quickly growing angry with Anna, but Anna wasn't afraid of her. In fact, in spite of the young girl's insistences, Anna found her somewhat interesting, and even almost cute. If not for the bloodthirsty look in Magik's eyes, Anna might even have liked her. However, something about Magik reminded Anna of the way she used to be; all determined to force herself on others, and frustrated when it didn't quite go that easily. Anna would have loved to be able to converse with Magik more intelligently, but the drugs were still impeding her ability to think clearly.

"The full story of my life would take too long," Magik said at last, "and there are details I'd prefer to leave out anyway. In brief, I spent my teenage years in another world, fighting with all my might to survive and gain power for myself."

"Another world?" Anna asked, amazed to find herself believing the strange story, "Incredible. Did you ever manage to take the whole place over?"

Magik's face was still a mask of dislike and distaste, as she replied to that question with a simple "Yes."

Of course, if Magik was bluffing, Anna would probably have found out about it soon enough, but Anna suspected that she was, in fact, telling the truth, in which case, her weapon-like mentality had an obvious source. Beyond a certain point, the struggle for survival could truly warp a person's mentality like that; even the mentality of a little girl.

Anna had a couple of moments to reflect on her own mentality as she realized that; the lessons she'd learned from her father's death, her "rescue" by Raven, her role in killing the Avengers and taking control of their powers, her discovery of her mother's real motives, and her eventual independence, or at least what she'd hoped would be independence. They hadn't been normal experiences for her a girl her age, and having had the chance to re-examine them, Anna was pretty convinced that her own world view had been somewhat twisted by them. When she finally decided to try replying to Magik, she wasn't sure she'd have much to say, however.

"Ah think you're headed upstream against the current, when you aught to be headed in the other direction, mahself," Anna said sadly, "but the truth is, ah just used to close mahself off from all mah feelings of worry about what other folks felt. There's nothing special about that. S'called denial. Ah figured if ah just ignored how people felt, it wouldn't bug me."

Magik and Anna just faced each other for several seconds after that. Neither had much more to say to the other, though they had different reasons for their hesitation.

"This is meaningless." Magik finally said, "I can learn nothing from you."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Anna asked, a little insulted.

"I thought that you might have found a method that I'd overlooked in accomplishing great deeds in this world, but I was mistaken." Magik replied angrily, "Man isn't as easily understood as daemons are. That makes this entire affair much more difficult."

"What are you really saying?" Anna asked, curiously. However, Magik didn't seem eager to share, and in just a moment, turned to leave.

However, by that point, Anna could tell that there was a part of herself that was deeply longing to speak; a part of herself that had something very important to say. Anna could have resisted that part; suppressed that urge, but she wasn't very good at that sort of thing.

"Thy silence is a poor defense." Anna found herself saying, all trace of her accent missing from the words as she spoke them. The only part of her that was speaking then was the part that was the mighty Thor.

"I don't need to defend myself to you." Magik said, growing irritated.

"Aye." Anna replied with more than a little sarcasm, "Truly, thou art happy enough. Did thy conquest ever bring thee joy, even of the slightest amount?"

"I was satisfied with it." Illyana said, evading the issue, and seeming not to have taken the difference in Anna's voice as a sign of anything serious, "That's as close to joy as anyone can really get. Anything deeper than that is a deception; an illusion."

Then Anna found herself doing something somewhat worrying, even to her. She was laughing at Magik. She was laughing hard; a big, hearty laugh, as if she were standing over Magik in triumph, rather than being imprisoned in any kind of cage.

"What are you doing?" Magik demanded, "Stop that!"

Eventually, Anna did stop, though it took her a few moments. At last, she spoke with a smile on her face, in spite of her exhaustion and worry.

"Who art thou to command one such as I?"

At that point, Magik seemed to have grown an inch or two taller, and the look of ferocity in her eyes had increased substantially.

"I am Magik; sorceress supreme of limbo, defeater of Belasco the merciless, high queen of all the daemons, and the most powerful warrior ever to emerge from that realm!"

"Nay." Anna replied, still smiling, "Sorceress thou may be. Defeater thou may be. Queen thou most definitely art, but a warrior? Nay."

"You dare to question me?" Magik demanded, "You would say that I'm not a warrior from inside that cell?"

"A warrior's worth is not found only in the victories that she claims," Anna replied, still smiling, "but it the great, delightful celebrations held in her honor after a successful raid or conquest, and the honor and loyalty with which she serves. Thy grasp of killing may be thorough, but thou art no warrior of any kind, until thou dost understand the meaning of honor, and the joys of victory and revelry. Even to fall before a worthy enemy is no sort of tragedy for a true warrior, and a warrior alone can decide to live in peace and happiness. Others are merely forced into it. Thou art merely a killer; not a warrior."

At first, it looked as if Anna's words were getting a rise out of Magik, but after a few seconds, she headed for the stairs again, looking crestfallen, and it was obvious that she was, in fact, several inches taller than she'd been before.

"Your words won't convince me to set you free, at least." Magik said, "I'm leaving you to your imprisonment now."

Anna was still smiling, however, as Magik's size diminished back to normal, and gave her one parting shot.

"Do as thou must, mortal."

Magik paused by the stairs, and for a moment, seemed about to change her mind, but at last, she let out a heavy sigh. Just a second later, a disc-like shape that seemed to be made of light materialized under her feet. Soon, both she and the disc were gone.

That exchange had happened to Anna several days before, and if nothing else, it had taught her something very important. Conquering the world didn't make people happy. In fact, it made it even harder for them to recognize happiness.

That discovery had ruled out one possibility; the possibility that Raven had been right. However, it still left Anna with the question of what, exactly, was upsetting her so much, and why she couldn't seem to resolve her problem instead of just ignoring it. She spent two days worrying about that before she decided to consult the Avengers again.

"Come out." Anna said, and in moments, Thor, Pym and the Wasp were standing in front of her, with her father off to one side.

"Ah don't get it." Anna said as the four stood in front of her, "Why can't ah shake this feeling? It's not just the drugs, is it?"

It looked as if those people were a little sad, however, because what they had to say was going to be hard for Anna to accept.

"You're starting to feel remorse for what you've done in the past." Pym said after a few moments, "Taking people out of the world, and robbing their families of the chance to know them is a very severe thing to do, and a very serious action to take. I'm guessing that you never really took it seriously when you killed us. Our families must have faced the tragic inevitability of losing us for good. It's possible that you might just be upset that you caused people like them so much misery without even thinking it through."

"But ah don't even know those folks." Anna objected, but Pym replied very quickly, and with warm-hearted gentleness.

"Yes you do. In fact, you know them as well as we did. That's partly the source of your remorse. You remember my parents as well as I do. You remember how Janet's father died, and the kind of people who Thor had as family and friends. You remember them all as if they were your own relatives, and I think that some part of you wants to stop eating expensive meals, partying, and dancing, and try to comfort them over the loss of their family. Still, you know that as our killer, you never can."

Anna looked bewildered and lost, as Pym explained those things so completely and well. Of course, it made sense; Pym was a great genius and he was a part of her at that point; perhaps her most intelligent part. His explanations; distressing though they were, carried the ring of truth when Anna listened to them. She couldn't stand it. She hated to think about it. In fact, it was the truth that she'd been trying to hide from in the darkness of her thoughts. It was what Xavier had wanted her to face, and yet, she didn't know how. Anna Marie Darkholme had never faced her pain and sorrow before.

As the minutes ticked by, Anna was, if anything, feeling more horrible than ever.

* * *

"That's the real reason why I called you all together." Xavier said, a grim expression on his face, "This decision could effect us all for the rest of our lives, and I don't think it would be right for me to make it for the rest of you. I've asked Sheila to make the choice in case of a tie, but I don't expect that it will come to that. Do we place our trust in the Avengers, or do we face the loss of the institute together?"

Xavier could see that different expressions were traveling across the faces of the X-men, as they each considered the situation, thinking about it from their own point of view; each thinking about different factors. At last, however, it seemed that each X-man was ready to make their choice.

* * *

Anna lay on the floor of her cell, drifting back into consciousness again. It was unpleasant for her to be conscious, not because her dreams were comforting, but because as long as she was awake, the guilt was there too, hanging over her like the darkest storm cloud that had ever existed. It was the very worst feeling that she could imagine, and it never weakened; not even for a second.

The truth that Anna had been trying to hide from hadn't been something she'd needed to learn from others. She'd seen and heard the helpless screams of Janet Van Dyne as she'd died in Anna's grip, and she remembered how Janet had felt at that point. Janet hadn't been the only Avenger who'd screamed on that day, but her feelings of helpless fear and loss had been the strongest of all the Avengers. Anna had always struggled to ignore those memories, but ever since she'd focused on them, just once, she'd realized that she couldn't ignore them anymore.

From that point on, those memories and feelings would be there, and those screams were continuing to echo through her head, as part of both her own memories, and Janet's. It was no longer the drugs alone that were making Anna lethargic. Drugs were bad enough, but Anna just couldn't gather up the will to move anymore. The screams were too much.

Even as another flash of light deposited three people into the area just outside of her cell, Anna knew that she couldn't move, because the screaming was still there. She barely even had enough will to recognize the people. One of them was graying slightly, and had a mustache, and a red cloak, held in place with a large, metal eye that was, at the time, closed. The second was a red-haired woman, dressed all in black. The third was perhaps the most recognizable of all the modern superhumans. She had a black mask, long, blond hair, and a large lightning bolt symbol along the front of her uniform. Two of the beings were obviously Doctor Strange and Miss Marvel, though Anna had never seen the third before.

"Widow." Strange said in a commanding tone, "Look over their security measures. Are they good enough to hold her?"

The woman who apparently referred to herself as Widow spent only a couple of seconds examining the machines, before she nodded.

"There are about four people in the world who could set up a better containment system than this one. Two are Avengers, and the other two are Doctor Richards, and Doom."

"What about the message on the wall?" Strange asked curiously. Widow seemed to have barely even glanced at it, but she already had a full evaluation ready.

"It wasn't written by anything solid. Those words were burned into the wall by some kind of explosion of high-friction energy."

"High-friction?" Miss Marvel asked, confused, "Wait a minute. Wouldn't that melt the metal too?"

"Part of it is melted." Widow replied, "However, in this instance, friction within the wall was accelerated to the point where the wall itself burst open in small areas. That's how the words were created. Obviously, we're dealing with someone who can create intense friction in the air, and even inside of objects."

"Now the question becomes; who could do that?" Strange said, looking distracted, as he thought it over.

"Again, it's a short list." Widow replied, "Most of them are Avengers. Yourself, the Human Torch... Namor might be able to, if he were to really get creative. Any of the technological experts we work with could probably have rigged something up; Doom, Richards, Iron Man, Mole Man, myself..."

"Ah... Ah could've done it."

At once, all three Avengers, who'd paid so little direct attention to Anna up to that point, turned to face her as one. They all seemed surprised that she'd spoken up at all. After all, they knew who she was, and she must have known who they were. Even so, she was trying to help them. It caught them off guard.

"You?" Strange asked, "How?"

"Ah just have to create atmospheric friction inside the tiny air pockets in the wall." Anna said, though she was still too exhausted to get up, "Problem is, ah couldn't do it while ah'm drugged, so it couldn't have been me."

"You have the power to create atmospheric friction?" Miss Marvel asked, astonished.

"Ah get the powahs of everybody ah touch..." Anna said miserably, "All of 'em. Ah get their powahs, their thoughts, their memories... Everything."

The moment that Widow heard that, her eyes widened, and she turned to face Strange quickly.

"I know who's responsible for this," Widow said, "but don't make snap judgments about this girl. She might not be as great a danger as she's been in the past."

"What?" Strange asked, barely able to believe what Widow was saying, "Widow, this girl killed three members of the Avengers. She has to face justice for what she did."

"Right," Widow replied, "but don't try to attack her. I think she's already facing justice for what she's done, and we can't afford to devote too much manpower to her at the moment, anyway."

Strange glanced at Widow once, then at Anna, then back at Widow, but her answer clearly hadn't satisfied him. Miss Marvel, though, seemed a little more satisfied by Widow's answer, even if she didn't understand all the reasoning behind it.

"What is it, Widow?" Miss Marvel asked, seemingly determined to get to the heart of the matter, "How's she facing justice?"

Widow looked up at the ceiling for a moment, as if struggling to come up with an answer to that question, but at last, she said, "Aside from the fact that she's started to feel guilty over her crimes, real justice is what happens when each person gets exactly what they deserve. Because of that, it's very difficult and rare for a murder case to result in a just outcome."

There was no reply to that for several seconds, but at last, Strange had started to look very confused, and a question finally escaped his lips; a question he couldn't hold in anymore.

"I'm not following you." Strange said, "What are you suggesting, exactly?"

"I'm suggesting that you don't try to punish her until this investigation is complete." Widow replied, "We don't have enough information about her stalker to make snap judgments. If it's who I think it is... We can't afford to make assumptions, though."

Widow's reply hadn't satisfied Strange or Miss Marvel, but she clearly wasn't going to explain herself any further, so Strange started moving his hands into a number of new gestures, causing Widow to vanish again. A moment later, Strange had placed one hand on his forehead, and closed his eyes, then opened them again. That was when he and Miss Marvel also disappeared, leaving Anna to wonder what they had planned for her, and what, exactly, they were trying to accomplish, that was demanding so much of their time.

* * *

Professor Xavier had shared a brief telepathic discussion with Doctor Strange before he'd departed. In that discussion, Strange had let Xavier know what they'd discovered about the writing on the wall, and mentioned the glowing evaluation that the X-men's containment system had been given. However, it wasn't until Strange returned to the Avengers mansion, that he told Xavier anything more substantial than that.

"Xavier," Strange had said, "We're facing a pretty large problem at the moment. Obviously, we can't commit you, or the X-men to help us with that problem, but if and when it's resolved, we'll be able to help you with your legal troubles."

"And Anna?" Xavier asked. It was the last matter that he needed clarification on.

"We haven't made any decisions about her yet." Strange replied, "Of course, if she's becoming too dangerous or expensive to take care of, we can take her off your hands, but we're not going to try to press charges against her, until the current crisis is over."

"I ask because I hope that I might still be able to make some progress in helping her learn to face the crimes that she's committed."

"That would make it easier for her to stand trial." Strange admitted, "You can keep trying, if you'd like."

"Thank you." Xavier replied, and that was the end of their latest communication.

* * *

Xavier felt pretty bad about what had happened as the afternoon wore on into the evening. Although he was pleased that the Avengers had been so sympathetic to the X-men and their plight, and were so eager to help them out in their impending legal battle, there was a slight guilt hanging over Xavier's head, about letting them know where Anna was. Although she'd done a great deal to earn the retribution of the law, Xavier couldn't help but feel as if he were betraying her somehow. Assuming that the stalker was found, and everything went as planned, Anna would probably be prosecuted to the full extent of the law by the Avengers. It was a fate that she'd very much earned, and yet... The whole thing made Xavier very sad.

Xavier hadn't bothered trying to read Anna's mind, since hours before he'd contacted the Avengers, but as he paid one final visit to her cell that evening, he knew that it was time to do so. Anna was lying limp and listless on the floor of her cell, and it wasn't just the drugs. A tray of food was lying next to her untouched. She usually finished her meals almost immediately, so there was obviously a problem. Anna's facial expression, and failure to respond were, to Xavier, indicative of someone in a near-catatonic state, and when he scanned her mind in the hopes of discovering why, what he found in her thoughts shocked him.

From rapidly-tiring defiance, Anna's thoughts had transformed completely. She was feeling nearly overwhelmed by bitterness and remorse, and almost every thought that was passing through her head was another self-accusation in a cascade of voices that didn't seem, to Xavier, to be her own. For a moment, the professor considered how dangerous she might still be, but he knew that he had to turn off the gas jets, and remove the airborne sedative from Anna's prison. If she kept going the way she was; consumed by thoughts of guilt, but lacking the energy she needed to reason them out, it was only going to damage her psyche in the end. Besides, if Anna did, in fact, make some attempt at an escape, Xavier could always just render her unconscious again, with the same mental ability he'd used against his half brother Cain.

The professor watched as the gas was gradually removed from the prison, and Anna started to breathe a bit more rapidly; her powerful lungs reacting to the fresh air that was being filtered into her cell. Even so, she was in a haze, and her mind was all a jumble of guilt and despair. She couldn't bring herself to stand up, even once the prison opened, and Xavier sat only a few feet away from her. All she needed to do was rush forward with her superhuman speed and grab him, and then she'd be free again, and she could deal with the X-men, and whoever else was after her.

The idea crossed her mind only once, before plummeting into oblivion for good. Anna's days of killing people to get what she wanted were over. Already, she realized, she was consumed by guilt over what she'd done in the past, and she couldn't see any means of escaping that guilt. She wouldn't dive so quickly into the same mistake again.

Xavier felt every nuance of Anna's thoughts as she made those important choices, though in truth, her thoughts were still too intense and guilt-ridden to motivate her into doing anything that involved getting up. Anna had gotten over the drugs in seconds, and yet, to judge from her lack of energy, one might have thought that she was still badly drugged. Her expression looked both painful and listless. Xavier had hardly ever seen such a depth of guilt; such bottomless sadness over past actions in anyone Anna's age before. There couldn't be any doubt of her sincerity.

After over a week, and just as the Avengers had left, Anna had done what Xavier had asked her to; pulling back the veil of darkness that protected her from the truth, and she'd been nearly shattered by that truth. It was progress in a sense, but as much, and as totally as Anna have leapt into self-serving mania, she seemed to have leapt just as totally into remorse and self-loathing. She was still in no kind of position to apologize for what she'd done, much less stand trial for her crimes, which meant that Xavier still had work to do. He could easily have made quick contact with her telepathically, but there was a chance that she might see that as a sign of further mistrust; another sign of her guilt, and another reminder of it. Xavier knew that he needed to be more careful than that with her. At that point, she needed someone to pull her back from the brink of despair; someone who was trying to help her, not tamper with her thoughts.

"Anna." Xavier said aloud, but he received no reply from her, so he tried again.

"Anna." Xavier repeated, "Can you hear me?"

Anna's eyes darted towards Xavier a moment later, though she didn't dare to say anything. She could hear him well enough; she just couldn't bring herself to speak.

"I'm pleased that you've chosen to confront the truth." Xavier said, as Anna lay on the floor of her cell, "Now you'll need to learn to do the right thing; to do your best to make up for the hurt that you've caused. In some ways, I'm sure that will be the hardest part of your recovery. Learning what the right thing to do is will probably be painful for you. Actually gathering up the strength to do the right thing will be even harder, and will require a great deal of struggle and effort."

Anna still couldn't bring herself to speak, but her next thought was very forceful. Xavier could hear it coming, and was certain that she meant for him to hear it.

"Shut up. I listened to your advice before, and look what happened."

"I've done you the courtesy of not invading your mind since you began to make this progress." Xavier said a bit flatly, "The least that you could do for me in exchange is speak to me aloud if you have something to say."

Anna was still swamped by guilt, and low on motivation. Even so, Xavier's remark had upset her a great deal, and that anger and discontentment was driving her to fight the guilt for a moment; to crowd it out of her mind as best she could, until she could find the strength to use her voice again. It was a necessary step for her, and Xavier was careful not to assist her with it mentally. It was something that she needed to learn for herself.

Motivated by her anger with Xavier, and her discontent over her situation, Anna gradually opened her mouth, and braced her arms against the floor. In only a few moments, she'd forced herself into an upright, seated position, and glared at Xavier from where she was, opening and closing her mouth repeatedly, as if trying to get used to the idea of using it again.

For a few moments, it seemed that Anna's first words to the professor were going to be an exclamation of anger and distaste, but then, she slumped forward, putting her face in her hands. Her fingers became soaked very quickly as the deep breath that she'd wanted to use for rebuking Xavier came out as a series of pitiful sobs.

Xavier's position was a pretty bad one at that point. His instinct would have been to move closer and comfort the girl, but her prison was on a raised platform that his wheelchair couldn't reach, and anyway, there was a great deal of evidence to suggest that touching her would have been enough to kill the professor. No one, he realized gradually, could get close enough to comfort Anna, and it probably wouldn't have worked anyway. Anna was too miserable, at the moment, to be comforted so easily. Xavier would just have to communicate with her gradually, and do what he could to help her work through her guilt.

"Ah just..." Anna gasped, as she looked up again at Xavier, "Ah didn't mean to hurt anybody. Ah swear. Ah thought that if ah took people, they'd be happier and nicer... Ah see them when ah call them; the people ah took. They show up, and they're all so smart and healthy, and they're all happy. Ah didn't think it was like really killing... Ah never..."

"You didn't think that you were really killing people?" Xavier asked, looking disturbed, "Who told you that?"

"Raven did." Anna gasped out, "She said that nobody's powahs were evil, and since ah basically just took peoples lives, and made them part of mine, she said... She said ah wasn't killing them; ah was giving them a chance to be part of something bigger... Ah hung onto that, because... Because, if that was true, it would've meant mah daddy wasn't really dead."

Xavier's eyes widened when Anna said that. Obviously, her problems went much deeper than he'd originally thought. It was deeply worrying, because he wasn't certain that he could penetrate that level of abnormal psychology.

"Ah... Ah always sorta knew ah was killing folks, ah guess..." Anna admitted desperately, "but ah didn't really think it was the same as real killing, y'know, because their personalities, powahs and skills all stick around in me. When ah found out what... Ah didn't think it was the same, but then ah saw the truth about them; what they would really have thought about me and..."

Anna was in tears again in just a moment, and Xavier had a foothold. Although Anna's specific problem was unique, her kind of sorrow was a very common one. There had been, over the course of the last several decades, a large number of cases in which women had discovered that they were, in fact, guilty of murder, despite not having realized it before. In the vast majority of those cases, they were overwhelmed by crushing guilt over what they'd done, and their emotional and mental stability collapsed; sometimes overnight. It was never easy for a woman like that to take responsibility for what she'd done, and learn to face her guilt, but it had been done successfully in the past. Anna's position wasn't too different from theirs, so Xavier knew what to do next.

"You did kill people." Xavier admitted, "You didn't have any right to, but you did it anyway. Now that that's done, what are you going to do next? You can't go back and change the things you did in the past. How will you cope with what happened in the here and now?"

"Ah... Ah don't think ah can." Anna muttered.

"If you can't cope with your actions, then you can't make restitution for them either." Xavier replied, "In that case, you'll only be doing another disservice to the people you've hurt. I know that there are things you could do for the people who you hurt the most by what you did, but you can't do those things until you have the strength to confront your guilt and put it into its proper place within your life."

"Ah don't want to feel guilty." Anna blurted out, "Not like this. There's gotta be something ah can do to stop it."

"There are quite a few things that you could do to stop your guilt," Xavier replied, "but none of them would solve your problem. Your real issue has always been your refusal to face your guilt, which is why it's grown so much stronger. You can refuse to face it again, but if you do that, you'll never be able to confront your problems. You'll never have the strength to face the need for restitution, and you'll be trapped forever in the meaningless darkness of self-delusion. I don't think that's what you really want."

Anna looked lost for several seconds, but at last, she spoke, and she seemed more open to Xavier's plan than before.

"What do ah have to do?" Anna asked.

"You'll need to decide who to make restitution to. Who did you hurt the most, and how can you make amends for the damage that you did?" Xavier explained slowly, "Once you've answered those questions, you'll have plans of your own."

"Captain America," Anna recited at once, "Iron Man, Marie and Larry Pym. Ah have to start with them. Ah know they felt the worst over what ah did."

Xavier nodded, but in that moment, he was faced with something of a crisis. Scanning Anna's thoughts to determine her sincerity would almost certainly be seen as an act of mistrust, and drugging her again would have been even worse. Obviously, Xavier needed to do something about Anna. She wanted to make amends, but nothing could really be done until the following day. He didn't want to do anything that would make the Avengers angry, and yet, he wasn't sure that he could keep her imprisoned, unless she did something to prove herself dangerous again.

Charles Xavier just wasn't the kind of person who was accustomed to striking the first blow in a conflict. He'd always preferred to hope for the best, even from someone who'd proven untrustworthy in the past. In fact, his entire dream of peaceful coexistence between mutants and other human beings was founded on that tendency; his desire not to make the first attack out of fear or mistrust. Unfortunately, that desire left him with very few choices, where Anna was concerned, so for the first time in all the years that he'd known her, Xavier decided to take Anna into his confidence.

"I'm not certain what to do next." Xavier said sadly, "If I try to put you back in that prison, you'll lapse back into despair, and none of what we've said will have meant anything, but if I let you run loose, and someone gets hurt, or even killed, I'll be to blame, and Logan will tell me that I was naive for trusting you. In addition, there's always the chance that you might decide to leave the institute overnight, which would upset the Avengers quite a bit. They're hoping to bring you to trial for what you did, I think."

Anna just nodded. It made sense that the Avengers would try something like that. After all, they might have had three more members if not for her.

"Ah can't help you there, Xavier." Anna said sadly, "Ah can tell you ah don't want to hurt anybody anymore, but ah'll bet it won't mean a thing."

Anna said those words with complete sincerity, and even without telepathy, Xavier could tell that she was really feeling that way; miserable and unwilling to destroy anyone else. He'd learned caution since he'd first founded the Xavier Institute, and yet, Charles Xavier couldn't ignore the kind of person he was on the inside. His sense of caution told him to do one thing, but every other thought and feeling in his being told him something else. That was when Xavier knew that he couldn't keep Anna imprisoned anymore, no matter how great the danger was. The moment that he fell asleep, Anna would be free to attack or escape, but he had to take that chance; he had to hope for the best.

"I'll assign you a room." Xavier said, "But you'll be expected to stand trial for your crimes later. I can't do anything to protect you from that."

"Ah see..." Anna muttered. She was obviously feeling very down, and she didn't seem eager to make any kind of reply, though whether it was because of her guilt, or because she didn't have a lot of experience with thanking people, Xavier wasn't sure.

The room that Xavier gave to Anna was a relatively shabby one. In fact, it was bare and white, just like the rooms he'd given to each of his students when they'd first arrived, and it was a good deal smaller than most of the residential rooms at the institute. Even so, it had a fairly comfortable bed, and a window that looked out onto the institute grounds.

Anna had been drifting in and out of consciousness for over a week and a half by that point, but it had been so long since she'd seen the night sky, that the very sight drew out her already-strong exhaustion. In moments, she collapsed into bed, and drifted back into unconsciousness, still pursued somewhat into her dreams by her feelings of guilt.

* * *

When Anna woke up, it was still very early. In fact, the sun hadn't even come up. It was probably something like two in the morning, but she'd been woken by the sound of a loud thumping noise in her room.

Though she was still feeling groggy, and emotionally-overwhelmed, Anna struggled to sit up in bed, and see what the problem was. There, she saw the most shocking and astonishing thing that she'd seen in months.

Anna's window was letting warm air into her room, having been opened noiselessly during the night, and there were two figures standing in the darkness of her room. Both were tall, and one seemed to have grabbed the other from behind. However, the one in front was wearing an expensive-looking suit, while the other was holding what appeared to be a large hammer made of wood and metal.

More than one thing about that situation worried Anna. The suit looked just like a hundred other expensive suits of its type worldwide, but the hammer was quite unique, and it was very familiar to Anna, though she couldn't make out the faces of either man distinctly.

"Fool!" she heard one man exclaim, "You've woken her!"

"Bite thy tongue." Another voice replied, and in moments, the two had moved with speed that rivaled Anna's own, shooting back out through the window together. In under a second, Anna had begun using her own powers again, rushing to the window with as much speed as she could summon. Once there, however, she could see that the man in the suit seemed to be disintegrating, or rather, transforming. From his posture, he looked mainly furious, and badly disappointed by the turn that things had taken, but even so, his whole body seemed to be changing into a cloud of bats, that started to fly away from the institute grounds.

By that point, the other figure was looking away from Anna, but despite the lack of sunlight, she could see enough of him to understand what was going on, and all of her muscles tensed up in preparation for the fight that she was definitely about to be forced into. The man standing there on the institute lawn was dressed in large armor, to match his powerful build. There was a helmet on his head, and a long, brown cloak hung from his armor at the shoulders. In his right hand, he held a powerful-looking hammer, and his hair was long and blond. Anna wasn't sure how it was possible, but she knew who the new arrival was, even before he turned to face her. It was Thor; the Norse god of thunder.

For a few moments, Anna was speechless, though she herself flew out through the window, to meet with the thunder god. She could see that he was watching her warily, as any true warrior would, and yet, when she descended to the ground, he didn't seem tense. In fact, he looked very relaxed, which probably meant that he wasn't afraid of her, and wanted her to see him at his best.

For nearly fifteen seconds, the two circled each other on the lawn of the Institute. Thor obviously expected Anna to say something, but Anna didn't know what to say. Finally, Thor seemed to be getting bored with the silence, and spoke up.

"Thou dost wish to know how I survived our encounter." Thor said aloud.

"You didn't survive." Anna said, a little anger rising in her, though she was mainly just worried as she spoke, "Ah absorbed you completely. Nobody ah do that to survives. Even now, ah've still got your powahs, your thoughts, your memories, and philosophies..."

"To kill a god is not so easy a thing." Thor replied, his expression becoming stern, "A god is not made up of merely flesh and blood, nor was my presence in this body dependent upon the power that thou didst steal."

Anna made no sign of wanting to hear Thor's explanation, but he started to explain nonetheless.

"My power is bestowed upon mortal beings who are worthy, through this hammer," Thor explained, "but my true essence, at present, is within the hammer, as a force of great energy. When thou didst conquer me by treachery and deceit, the body that was a manifestation of my powers was drained away under thy touch, and my true force was badly diminished as well. It has taken a great deal of time to replenish it, and re-establish my physical form. My restoration was completed a mere month ago, and almost at once, I decided to take back what was mine; to remove thee from the world, so that once again, I might be the only bearer of the power of Thor; its true owner."

"You were the one that knocked me right outta the sky," Anna realized aloud, "and you wrote that message on the wall near mah cell. Were you the one who broke into mah room a while back too?"

"Nay." Thor replied, "My first intrusion into thy quarters was tonight. I think, perhaps, that the fiend who I've recently chased from thy room has been following thee for a long time, though it makes no difference now."

"No." Anna replied, looking at the ground for a moment, "Ah guess not."

Thor could hear a motor vehicle approaching the Institute from a ways away, but aside from that, there was nothing to interfere with his next move, and Anna's glance at the ground had afforded him the ideal opportunity to strike.

Digging one foot into the ground, Thor shot forward, swinging his hammer with a level of speed and power that few other living beings could duplicate. Anna caught Thor's attack square in the chin, and her whole neck was thrown into massive discomfort, as the force of the blow knocked her backwards across the institute grounds. However, in a sense, the pain had done her more good than harm, because it had woken her up to what was really happening to her, and what she was doing wrong.

Before Thor had appeared, Anna had been consumed by guilt and sorrow, and she'd lost most of her willpower while she was surrounded by that grief, but when Thor had begun his attack, her baser instincts had started to kick in; the same instincts on which Thor himself depended. Anna quickly realized the danger that she was in, and straightened up in mid-air, hoping that she could react in time to block Thor's next attack. She may not have been Thor himself, but she'd felt the spirit of a warrior inside of her, ever since she'd absorbed his powers, and no true warrior could just lay down and die when faced with a strong opponent.

Quickly, Thor charged to the attack again, striking Anna in the stomach with his hammer; refusing to let up, but as he did so, Anna had seized a joint in his armor with one hand, and swung the other around into his face. She could feel her fist straining to maintain its force, and to stay in one piece when she made that punch, but it was obvious that Thor had felt her attack. As strong as he was, her strength was precisely the same, and there were, she realized, other advantages that she could count on in a fight against him.

As fast as she could, Anna swung one leg around, in the hopes of knocking Thor back, while he was still disoriented by her punch, but he recovered too quickly for her, blocking her kick, and knocking her further up into the air, with a vicious backhanded assault.

As Thor and Anna fought, each sped up, increasing both the speed and force of their blows, and the height at which they flew. The fight grew more intense with every moment. Each blow was like thunder itself, and the two combatants rose further and further into the air, neither willing to give in to the other. Anna was starting to show a strong resolve at that point, although if Thor saw that resolve in her, he gave no sign of noticing it. Anna had determined not to try to absorb Thor's powers again. Whether she won or lost, she was going to do it through her effort; not by stealing from her enemy, like she had before. She was going to win or lose with the honor of a warrior.

At last, however, Anna started to increase in size and mass, as she called upon the power of Henry Pym. She continued flying through the air with enormous speed, trading earth-shaking blows with Thor, but at a hundred feet tall, she was in a much better position to endure his attacks. In fact, she was starting to feel them more as low-level nudges, than genuine punches and kicks, and although she was still hurting, and still having trouble fighting Thor, she'd definitely gained the upper hand. The entire thing was immensely exciting. Hank's ability to become a giant was one that she'd never needed to use before, and she wasn't used to aiming for very small targets with her fists. That, of course, was how it felt to her at the time. She'd grown a great deal larger than Thor, but that really only made him seem smaller and harder to hit.

After each struggled for a while against the other in that manner, however, Anna swung one fist at Thor, and found, to her surprise, that he seemed to have vanished. In moments, she heard his voice from directly behind her, and he sounded more disappointed than furious.

"Thou hast done me honor in showing me thy full powers, and in abstaining from petty tricks, like the kind that thou didst use to fell me two years ago. I salute thee for doing me that honor."

"Ah didn't want to trick you anymore, Thor." Anna replied sadly, "Ah don't want to hurt anybody anymore, and ah especially don't want to kill anyone. Ah've killed folks before, but ah don't want to live like that anymore."

"After today," Thor replied, "thou shalt never live that way again. Thy honor has been commendable. Continue to display it, and I shall grant thee the great honor of a warrior's death in battle, and the greater honor of seeing the true power of the thunder god."

"True powah?" Anna asked, confused, "Ah've got all your powahs."

"Nay." Thor replied, "Did I not tell thee that a god is more than mere flesh and blood? In turn, the power that thou didst take from my body was great, but only the true Thor of Asgard possesses the soul of a god. Within that soul, other powers are concealed. Now, witness them, and die with honor, and I shall hold a ceremony in thy name. In the eyes of my people, thou shalt have been redeemed by that, and we may meet again in Valhalla."

Anna didn't like the sound of that very much. It was probably still the human desire to live, that remained a part of her, in spite of all she'd done, but still, even if Thor wasn't bluffing, Anna knew that she couldn't cheat, and try to trick Thor again, or remove her gloves, and try to absorb his power a second time. The combined honor of three founding Avengers had become a part of her, and she couldn't ignore it anymore. She had to hold herself up to a code of conduct; of principle. Anna couldn't attempt to atone for her sins, unless she was willing to honor the memories of those she'd killed. All that was left of Janet, Hank, and Anna's father was a part of her, and she needed to do what they would have done in her situation; she needed to defend herself fairly.

However, the power that Thor was using was pretty terrifying. Although Anna couldn't see Thor at that point, she had the distinct feeling that there was something very large nearby, even by her standards; something much bigger than her, in fact. After only a moment had passed, Anna saw the storm clouds gathering in the air, and realized with dread that her own dominion over the weather was slipping. Thor was regaining control over his domain, and in another second, she heard a voice so loud, that it seemed to shake the sky. She recognized it quickly as the voice of Thor, but it was so much louder and more commanding, that she was shaken to her very bones by it.

"Stop what thou art doing and look up. Face the god of thunder and be judged."

In spite of herself, Anna found that she was indeed looking upward, into the rapidly-gathering clouds. The rain poured down onto her face, and then, as lightning flashed across the sky, Anna caught the glimpse of a monstrous figure; at least ten times her own size. It rose up into the clouds, and it was definitely Thor.

Thor had said that his true powers were a manifestation of his immortal soul. If that were true, then it seemed unlikely that the vision Anna had just seen was accurate. If Thor could have transformed into a giant, he would probably have kept pace with her own increase in size. Undoubtedly, what he'd just shown her was an illusion; a trick to attempt to convince her that he was much larger and more threatening than he actually was. The problem was that as much as she tried to tell herself that it was just an illusion, Anna still felt her body shaking with every new sign of Thor that emerged; every word spoken with such volume and conviction; every image of a monstrously-powerful being that was placed before her. She was in helpless awe of Thor, and would have been, even if he'd had no other powers at all. Whether he was a genuine god of thunder or not, his soul was proving to be stronger than hers, and it was shaking her resolve.

"Think not" the image said, "that thy size is truly an advantage."

When she heard those words, Anna felt an extremely hard blow come down on the small of her back. She wasn't sure how Thor had managed such a powerful attack. Maybe he'd used his hammer to turn the electrical energy of the storm into kinetic force, but however he'd done it, Thor's attack had hurt her physically, just as his loud announcements were hurting her spiritually and emotionally. In moments, her size was decreasing again. She just couldn't keep it up. She'd been struggling with her guilt before, and with Thor striking right at the heart of her self-esteem, she couldn't keep up the fight. He'd been right. She couldn't have won against him. It was over for her.

As Anna's will abandoned her once again, she found herself plummeting to the ground. She needed concentration to remain airborne. Whatever Thor was doing, it was robbing her of all her feelings of hope; feelings that had become much too rare already, thanks to her recent revelation about her past crimes. Without hope, she couldn't concentrate, and without concentration, she was headed for the ground, picking up speed fast.

Anna knew that the impact with the ground wouldn't hurt her much. The only thing nearby that could do real damage to her was Thor himself, and since she'd lost the will to fight back, she was helpless against him. Anna closed both eyes in resignation. A moment later, a sharp, powerful impact hit her right in the stomach, and she blacked out.

* * *

A strange mixture of feelings passed through Thor as he stood on the grounds of the Xavier Institute, having driven his hammer into Anna's stomach from underneath. Because she'd possessed all of his strength, she'd been a very powerful opponent. He truly had needed to use his full abilities to defeat her. At the same time, her existence was an obscenity, not only to Thor himself, but to the Wasp, to Giant Man, and to anyone else that Anna had killed. She made a mockery out of life and death, and Thor knew that he had to put an end to that mockery.

The problem was that although Thor knew what he had to do, he wasn't feeling quite as furious with Anna any longer. He reminded himself of the underhanded trick that she'd used to ambush him, to murder two members of his team, and to nearly do the same to him. He reminded himself of the great wickedness that she'd used his powers for, and yet, the thirst for her blood was fading from his feelings. When he looked at her, lying on the ground at his feet, he was starting to see something more than a perversion of everything he was, and everything he believed in. He was looking at the warrior that she'd become; the fighter who attacked her enemies with her full power, but refused to resort to treachery. Thor knew that he had to finish her, for the sake of those she'd killed, but having seen the kind of person she'd become, his own rage towards her had diminished.

"Thou hast grown to become an honorable warrior." Thor muttered, as he stood over Anna's unconscious body, though he knew she couldn't hear him, "Perhaps thou shalt be forgiven for thy treachery in the halls of my father."

With that, Thor raised his hammer into the air, feeling it crackle with electricity. No foe, he realized, had ever brought him so close to true death, but to honor the memory of his comrades, he needed to finish her.

However, just as Thor was about to bring his hammer down on Anna's head, he heard another voice from behind him; a voice he recognized.

"I won't try to stop you, Thor, but do you really think that's what Jan and Hank would want?"

Thor had sensed that someone was approaching him, but he was still surprised by the number of people who'd gathered so nearby. He was just as surprised that he had, for the most part, failed to notice them, however. He could see that Doctor Strange was there, and Iron Man, in a type of armor that Thor had never seen before. There was also a short, shaggy-looking man, who seemed to have approached the group from the mansion. A bald man in a wheelchair was also gradually getting closer from the mansion's front door. However, none of them had asked Thor the question he'd just heard.

The one who'd spoken to Thor was a figure who'd stepped forth from amidst the others. He was dressed in red, white, and blue, and he had a disc-shaped shield slung over one arm.

"Captain." Thor said, looking stunned for a moment, "Is it not what thou wouldst want, in their place?"

"I may not believe in everything America's done over the last sixty years, but I still believe in the American dream." Captain America said only a few seconds later, "Maybe that doesn't mean as much if you've been around longer than America has, but it's a big thing to me. One of the things we always believed in was that people deserve the right to a fair trial. It's one of our most basic laws. I know Jan and Hank respected the law in that regard. They wouldn't have wanted you to become an executioner in their names, just like I wouldn't want you to be one for me."

"This girl killed our comrades!" Thor exclaimed, looking lost and abandoned, but Captain America just sighed.

"Yes, she did," he said, "and she's going to stand trial for that, but there are more important things than how a person dies. I have to admit; for a while, I was driven by the memory of how our friends died, and that was a mistake. I should have paid less attention to how they died, and more to how they lived. Janet Van Dyne was a social being, who found joy in works of art, and creative thinking. Hank Pym was a scientist who preferred to spend his time doing research, rather than fighting. Even so, they both recognized the need for good people to take direct action whenever something threatened the innocent; not for revenge, but for protection. If I honor the way that they lived, I have to follow their example, but killing Anna won't bring them back."

"There are things which thou hast not considered." Thor replied, lowing his hammer for a moment, "No matter what sentence this girl receives, she will survive it. From me, she gained an agelessness, which shall last for millennia; perhaps even until the universe itself ends. Further imprisonment may feel like punishment to her at first, but years are something that she can now afford to lose. How can she be made to suffer as I have suffered; as thou hast suffered? How can she be made to feel the pain of loss?"

"She doesn't need your help to feel pain."

Those words had come from the bald man in the wheelchair, who'd finally reached the scene. He didn't look afraid, in spite of how many powerful people surrounded him, however. In fact, he seemed mainly sad, as if sharing in Anna's misfortune at that very moment.

"Just recently," the bald man said, "Anna Marie came to grips with her guilt over the murders that she committed. Since then, her mind has been full of disturbing thoughts. She remembers all the pain and misery that her victims experienced in the moments before they died, and I can't think of anything that could more efficiently remind someone of their guilt in a murder. In fact, I'm sure that there are only a few worse punishments for a crime. If you're afraid that Anna might not be suffering sufficiently for what she did, I think that I can lay those fears to rest."

Thor looked frustrated and annoyed, but he looped the strap of his hammer around his wrist again, clearly intending not to strike out with it anytime soon.

"I feel badly cheated." Thor muttered, "By right, her deeds against me entitle me to her life. Thy ways may have been well-respected by the Wasp, by Giant Man, and by thyself, Captain America, but to me, they make little sense. Out of honor to my fallen comrades, I shall respect their wishes, but I do not believe I shall ever agree with them."

"I'm glad that's settled." Doctor Strange remarked, finally taking a deep breath in relief, "We need to get back to New York. We can't afford to stay here long."

"Why?" Logan asked, not having heard anything about what had happened to make the Avengers so busy.

"From the looks of things," Strange replied, "the world might be coming to an end. Some kind of being surfaced in New York recently, who has some unbelievable powers. I've never seen anything like them. He says he's made the Earth's most pivotal judgment, and he may already have summoned some destructive cosmic being, even more powerful than himself. He's already done a great deal of damage, and we haven't been able to stop him."

"Then my assistance is needed." Thor said, straightening up, with the look of a veteran soldier who'd just been called to battle.

Captain America nodded, saying "It's good to have you back, old friend."

However, as Strange was starting to make the gestures needed to establish a portal back into New York, there was the sound of dirt being scraped aside, and an exhausted, shaky female voice said "wait."

Strange stopped what he was doing in that moment, and all eyes turned to gaze in the direction of the voice. Somehow, Anna had already recovered somewhat from the pounding she'd taken just moments earlier, and was scrambling to get back upright, though it was obvious that she was still very woozy and disoriented. Even so, the time she'd spent drugged, sorrowful, and learning to cope with a warrior's spirit dwelling inside of her had given her the strength that she needed to face her exhaustion and misery. Some might have said that she was growing up for the first time in her life; learning to face reality like an adult, but Thor could see what was really happening. Anna was becoming more than just an adult; she was becoming a warrior.

"Sounds like... Sounds like..." Anna gasped as loud as she could, while scrambling to her feet, "Sounds like y'all need mah help."

No one there was certain that they liked the idea, but they didn't snap at her either, giving her a moment to explain herself.

"Look, you said there's a guy in New York who might be able to end the world somehow..." Anna tried to explain, "Suppose you're right, and he pulls it off, because ah didn't help out. Nobody's gonna be helped by that, and if things don't work out, it might be mah last chance to do the right thing for once. You gotta let me in on this. Ah know it's what Jan and Hank would want. They'd want their powahs used to help folks."

"If you try to betray us," Doctor Strange said, after considering the matter for only a few moments, "it won't help you at all. As long as you remember that, I don't see any reason why you can't help us out in this one mission. Is that a problem for anyone else?"

Most of the people gathered remained silent when that question was asked. It was only Iron Man who spoke up.

"We need all the help we can get right now." Iron Man said a little nervously, "It doesn't make me happy, but it's better than dying."

"Aye," Thor concurred, looking at Anna warily, "but if this crisis can be averted, we promise thee no reward in exchange."

"Ah don't want one." Anna said, and indeed, she didn't seem to have any obvious ulterior motive, to judge by her facial expression, which was very despondent.

Nodding once, Strange spread his hands out again, in another sequence of mystical gestures, and in moments, most of the people in that yard had vanished, leaving only Logan and the professor behind.

"So what now, Chuck?" Logan asked, looking more curious than scared.

"Now, we need to follow them." Xavier replied, "Things may be working out well for Anna and Thor, but this is still bad news for the rest of us, and the Avengers clearly need our assistance, whether they want to ask for it or not. We have to mobilize as quickly as possible, and head for New York. If the Avengers need our help, we can't just sit here and hope it all works out. We may be mutants, but we're still as human as anyone, and we live in the same world as everyone else. We all need to share the responsibility of making sure that things work out, and saving as many lives as possible."

Much of the time, Logan and Xavier disagreed on what course of action would do the most good, but in that instance, it certainly seemed that their path was clear. Quickly, Logan dashed for the hangar, as Xavier began to contact the X-men telepathically, all of whom had been woken by the sounds of battle, or the voice of Thor. They all had a very dangerous kind of mission on their hands again, and it was time to get to work.

* * *

End.


	26. X Men 10: Part of the Plan

X-Men Neo

Issue 10

"Part of the Plan"

* * *

Of course, the news about the crisis facing the people of Earth had hit the X-men pretty hard. It was easy to get worried when it seemed like the world might end soon, and there was a tension hovering around the X-men as the blackbird took off towards New York, and Galactus.

However, there were two people in the blackbird who didn't seem the least bit worried. Bobby, of course, was one, and the other was Kurt, who simply looked relaxed as he held his sword in front of him, ready at any time to strap it to his back again. In a lot of ways, he was one of the X-men's most accomplished members. He should have had more reason to fear death than anyone, having seen it so close up so many times, and yet, he didn't seem to be worried about Galactus. Jean found that a little unnerving, sitting right across from Kurt, so she spoke to him about it on the way over.

"Kurt, how can you be so calm?" Jean asked, causing Kurt to look up at her in surprise, "Didn't you see those big metal things in the sky? Don't you know what's happening? Aren't you afraid?"

At that point, however, Kurt started to look a little sad, and he rested his sword, still in its sheath, against one of his knees when he replied to Jean's question.

"I am a bit afraid. If there's as much danger as you say, I could easily die. We all could, but at the same time, I have no fear for the world. I'm going to do the best I can, and trust the fate of the world to work itself out, just as I always have."

"You're not afraid for the world?" Jean asked, "You mean you're sure the world won't be destroyed."

"Yes." Kurt replied, "I've read the bible, so I know how this world will end. Galactus will have nothing to do with it. No matter what we do here; even if we die, we'll drive this titan from our world somehow."

"You bet." Bobby replied with a smile, "We're the freakin' X-men! We can do anything."

Bobby's words seemed to have cheered up Jubilee a bit, and Jean was a little reassured by Kurt's confidence, although not that much. What reassured her most were the many students who'd joined the X-men in their latest journey to New York. Although the X-men would probably always be a unique and inseparable unit, like a family, there were times when they needed all the help they could get, and as it turned out, many of the other students at the Institute had wanted to join them for quite a while, but hadn't had the nerve to ask.

In the moment when metal and light had filled the sky; when Galactus' space ship had blocked out the light from Earth's sun and moon alike, most of the students at the Xavier Institute had been terrified, and that terror had typically led them to one of two courses of action. Either they'd hidden themselves away, hoping that it would all just work itself out, or else, they'd realized that that day might be their last chance to be part of the X-men.

There wasn't enough time to make outfits for any new members, of course, but spare masks were available, and when they approached the professor with their request, he knew he couldn't refuse them. After all, Earth was their world too, and they deserved the chance to protect it. The X-men would be that much more effective if a few new members joined.

There were ten new members of the X-men by the time they left the Xavier Institute. Alison Blaire had code-named herself Dazzler, and was wearing a mask that covered only her face, and a small area around the top of her head. Betsy Braddock, having almost fully recovered from her early psychic experiences, had named herself Psylocke. There was an Irish student in his late teens named Sean Cassidy, who'd called himself Banshee, a young, teenage girl named Kitty Pryde, who'd called herself Shadowcat, and six other young mutants, who'd taken the names Wolvesbane, Thunderbird, Sunspot, Cannonball, Angel, and Dryad, each with their own special powers and skills. Xavier wasn't sure that any of them were ready to risk their lives against Galactus, but there wasn't much time to worry about it. They had to stop the alien world-devourer. Nothing else mattered.

However, as they headed out in the direction of New York, none of them realized that they had a stowaway; someone who'd been forbidden to join the X-men, because everyone was concerned about what impact it would have on her psyche. Even if Galactus was defeated, if she went off her rocker again, it might not even make a difference.

Soon, though, the jet seemed to have stopped where it was, although the X-men knew that they hadn't reached New York yet. Fortunately, the professor was ready with an explanation, which he sent to the X-men telepathically.

"X-men, we may have to wait here for a short time. Apparently, the Avengers have come up with a rather intricate plan to stop Galactus, and they need us to wait a few minutes before we make any kind of attack."

Scott couldn't help but feel even more nervous when that news reached his ears. Intricate and careful planning was all well and good, but the waiting wasn't going to be easy, especially since he didn't know in advance when it would be time to strike. In the meantime, he sat in total silence with his closest friends in that jet, waiting in almost-painful dread for the moment when the attack would begin.

* * *

Professor Xavier didn't envy Doctor Strange's job. When Galactus' ship had appeared; filling the whole sky over the planet Earth, it seemed as if a number of complicated plans had needed to be brought to the table, and Captain America and Doctor Strange had been forced to plan them out, one at a time, with the most desperate, violent ones saved for last, of course. Xavier would be given the go-ahead to move against Galactus, but only if the more peaceful plans failed. It was, Xavier realized, somewhat ironic that his part in that crisis was strictly to do with troop deployment. He'd always been one of the more peace-minded individuals that he'd ever known, and yet, they were only going to call on him for help if a peaceful solution proved to be impossible. In a way, Xavier found that a little disappointing, although he certainly wouldn't hesitate to do whatever he could to save the planet he'd spent his whole life on, whether those actions were peaceful or not.

Xavier couldn't really see all that was going on from his place in the Blackbird, but there were news reports about Galactus being broadcast constantly over the radio. From that, Xavier heard about the attempts that were being made. The Fantastic Four, it seemed, had tried to make contact with Galactus, but he'd simply ignored them. A being called Ghost Rider, previously thought to be nothing more than an urban legend, had succeeded in communicating with Galactus, but hadn't been able to dissuade him from trying to destroy the Earth. At that point, it seemed that the fighting had begun. A criminal known as the Green Goblin had led a team of super-powered crooks against Galactus, but within only a few minutes, news had started to come in over the radio of their defeat. They were falling back; retreating before the cosmic titan that had invaded planet Earth.

It was only at that point that Professor Xavier was sent a telepathic message by Doctor Strange again, who sounded understandably serious and worried.

"If you'd like to move in now, Xavier, it's your turn, though I certainly can't promise you victory."

"Alright." Xavier replied, his heart sinking as he received that message, but Professor Xavier had already arrived at a decision about Galactus. He wasn't going to send the X-men to the attack just yet. His first action would be to attempt to make telepathic contact with the ancient and powerful being.

Quickly, Xavier closed both eyes and concentrated, feeling his mental powers stretch out towards the shining figure of Galactus. For a moment, Xavier could feel the presence of the mighty being, and was terrified by what he felt. Galactus had an even more powerful psychic presence than Xavier himself did. In fact, he was far more powerful. For a moment, Xavier got the impression that trying to get Galactus' attention through telepathy was as foolish as poking him in the big toe, and hoping he responded, but he shook the feeling off quickly, and kept up his attempt, sending mental impulses towards Galactus; conveying the desire for peace that Xavier felt.

Those thoughts were strong enough to send the same message to any human being on planet Earth, but Galactus had such powerful mental defenses, that he didn't even seem to notice Xavier's attempts at first. The professor was truly scared by that point. Even when his mind was at rest, Galactus' psychic shielding was incredibly powerful, but Xavier had shielding of his own, and he knew that there were ways to penetrate it.

With one great, mental effort, Xavier peeled away a single layer of the defenses that Galactus had around his mind, allowing some of Xavier's thoughts to seep through. However, when he did that, Galactus noticed him at once, and reacted quickly.

Instantly, Xavier's eyes snapped open, as he found himself back in his physical body, unable to read Galactus' presence at all anymore. Then, Xavier heard a loud, sharp command shooting through his own mind, and it was clear who that command belonged to.

"Begone."

Xavier shuddered at the power that he sensed from that word, which had cut through his own psychic defenses like warm butter. There was no question who was the more accomplished telepath. Xavier possessed the most powerful mental abilities of any Earthling, but Galactus simply outclassed him by an enormous margin. That worried the professor, not because he'd had any intention of trying to attack Galactus' mind as he had Cain's or Anna's, but because he was afraid that Galactus might turn out to be equally beyond the strength of his students. Still, if they couldn't do something to stop the invader, they were all dead anyway, along with everyone they'd ever known. They had no choice but to attack, and do the best they could.

Having made that decision, Xavier closed his eyes again, and held a brief telepathic meeting with Hank and Logan to plan out a battle strategy, then contacted the X-men.

* * *

Within a minute and a half, the Blackbird had flown out over the harbor, and the X-men had emerged. Kurt made his move first, teleporting out and towards Galactus' left shoulder, then seizing as much of the giant's neck as he could, and teleporting again to the top of the nearest building. When he reappeared on top of that building, he was, as planned, holding a piece of Galactus in his hands, however, when he turned to look at the giant, his heart sank.

Galactus was still standing over the water, looking a little upset by what had just happened, but there was no sign that any injury had been caused to him. His neck and throat still seemed perfectly unharmed, and even worse; Kurt could feel the piece of flesh and metal in his hands dissolving even as he held it; changing into simple light particles which, in a moment, had been re-absorbed into the titan. Kurt's attack hadn't done a thing, and it was the most destructive ability he had. There was, he realized, nothing more than he could really do against a being like Galactus. A few other plans had occurred to Kurt, but he wasn't powerful enough to make any of them work. For the moment, he simply had to hope that the rest of the X-men would have better luck.

In just a moment, Piotr and Sunspot had made their move as the other X-men either flew outward, away from the blackbird, or descended to the top of the nearest building on ropes. Sunspot, it seemed, had focused on seizing large pieces of cement from nearby, and throwing them at Galactus, but they shattered harmlessly against him. Colossus, in turn, had leapt directly at Galactus and lashed out with his fists. He could feel the flesh of Galactus giving a little under his blows, but it wasn't enough. It was finally time for Piotr to reveal just how powerful he'd become over the last two years.

Soon, Piotr began to increase in size, struggling to keep multiplying his own strength as he did so. Ten feet tall, twenty, fifty, and finally, a hundred; the same size as Galactus. In a relatively short time, Piotr was facing Galactus again, throwing a ferocious punch at the cosmic being. He wouldn't be able to spend much time in that form, but if he could just defeat Galactus, it would be worth it.

However, as Piotr grabbed Galactus' wrists and started kicking him, he could feel that for some reason, his kicks weren't doing any lasting damage. Galactus' body was healing itself after every attack, and Piotr could feel his strength draining away quickly, the longer he remained in that form. It seemed that Galactus felt it too, because he didn't seem to be in any hurry to counter-attack. At last, Piotr knew that it was time to give up, as he felt about ready to collapse. Galactus wasn't weakening at all, and Piotr's powers just weren't enough to change that.

As Colossus shrank back to his normal size, and he and Sunspot fell back, a bright crimson beam of force shot out at Galactus from the top of a nearby building. The beam never reached the ageless titan, However. It seemed to fade into nothingness as Cyclops continued to fire, but then it was Jubilee's turn. Gathering up all of the strength she could manage, Jubilee formed the largest implosion bomb she'd ever made. She wouldn't be able to make another like that one for days, and in a moment, it was flying towards Galactus, and was about to hit him dead-on.

Jubilee was accustomed to watching the implosion bomb draw things in and change them into simple, harmless energy, but it seemed that Galactus had a power similar to the one that Charge had used against her, because as soon as the bomb reached the ancient one's position, it started to warp and distort, whipping around Galactus like a sun being consumed by a black hole. At that point, Jubilee had no doubt in her mind about what was happening to her bomb, and indeed, to Cyclops' optic blasts. The energy that composed them was being effortlessly consumed by Galactus. At last, the two of them started to let up. Their powers clearly weren't helping the situation.

The next to make their move were Storm, Cannonball, and Dryad. Cannonball had charged forward through the air in a burst of power and speed, slamming against Galactus repeatedly, but to no avail. Dryad, in turn, was using her powers to cause seaweed to rise up and entangle Galactus' feet, while Storm was causing a massive waterspout to form over Galactus' very position.

Soon, the girl called Wolvesbane, and the young man known as Thunderbird had leapt into the ocean. In just a second, Wolvesbane had transformed, taking on the form of a large, strongly-built creature with the teeth, claws, and fur of a wolf, and each was pushing against Galactus' legs from the sides with their full power, attempting to trip him up somehow, but it didn't seem as if Galactus was losing his balance in any way. In fact, in just a moment, he was floating over the ocean again, and a simple burst of light had emerged from his eyes, causing a powerful shock wave to be flung from the waterspout in all directions, which drove the X-men back; all except for Cannonball, who fell back of his own volition once he realized what was happening. One by one, Galactus was showing them that their plans and attacks meant nothing to him. It was strange and terrifying, but there were still two plans left to execute.

Quickly, from her place on the nearest rooftop, Dazzler started creating blinding flashes all around Galactus' head, hoping to overwhelm his senses in some manner. At the same time, Banshee flew through the air towards the titan, emitting an ear-piercing shriek, as he moved near the ancient one's ears. Any mortal man would have found the barrage both deafening and blinding, but in his travels, Galactus had faced far more painful sights and sounds. The attacks of the two X-men meant nothing at all, and within a few moments, each had realized that. There was only one option left; one plan that might succeed, even after all the others had failed.

Angel was flying upward as hard as he could, with Psylocke riding on his back, and Kitty Pryde in his arms. His speed and power of flight were only one of the many great abilities that his large, feathery wings afforded him, and it was the one that he most enjoyed using, but at the moment, he needed to get the two girls above Galactus' head. He had just enough time to recognize what an enviable position he was in, and not enough to think anything more of it. Angel had a job to do, and although he had a very strong sense of humor, he knew the importance of duty, and how to take it seriously.

In a flash, Angel was over Galactus, and tried to keep steady while Psylocke grabbed Shadowcat's hand, holding on tight as Angel dropped the two of them towards Galactus, and watched their descent in worry. Shadowcat had the power to pass through solid objects, and to make whatever and whoever she touched just as ethereal, while Psylocke could, among other psychic feats, generate a small blade of pure disruptive psychic energy that could be used as an effective mental attack; even against a powerful psychic.

The plan, of course, was for Shadowcat to use her powers to cause herself and Psylocke to enter Galactus' head, and there, Psylocke would use the psychic knife to disrupt his thoughts. However, just as Kitty passed through Galactus' skin, she found that something had gone wrong. The place that Kitty had found herself didn't look like the inside of a person at all. It bore a much greater resemblance to outer space, with a massive star nearby, that seemed to have no gravitational pull of its own. However, Kitty had lost track of where she was by that point. She was still holding on to Psylocke tightly, and the two were both in that strange, space-like void, but there was no sign of an exit that could allow either of them to return to planet Earth, or indeed, any clue as to where they really were at all.

* * *

Angel kept watching for several seconds, as Galactus looked around for another moment, seemingly searching for something, but generally unaffected by whatever Shadowcat and Psylocke were up to. It was horrifying that even after all the attempts that the X-men had made, Galactus still stood, unaffected, and there was no sign of the girls. Of course, Wolverine, Beast, Jean, and Iceman hadn't made any sort of attempt yet, but if none of the others had been able to stop Galactus, it didn't seem likely that they could. Of course, that wouldn't stop Iceman from trying. It wouldn't stop any of them, in fact.

* * *

Bobby Drake scowled up at the massive giant who seemed to have caused the disappearance of two of the X-men's newest members very recently. He hadn't lost his confidence, but he didn't like the situation either. The battles he'd fought in had hardly ever been so one-sided before. Galactus had taken everything the X-men had been able to throw at him, and he still didn't even seem to be trying very hard. If Bobby had even a chance for victory, he was going to have to use his full powers.

Those were the thoughts that passed through Bobby's head as he stood at the corner of a building very close to the harbor, where he could get a good look at Galactus. Bobby hadn't been told his part in the plan yet, if he even had one, but he was starting to get sick of waiting. Soon, a thick layer of ice formed around his body, moving as he did, and yet, just as he was about to make his move against Galactus, he heard the sharp, clinking sound of someone tapping on his shoulder.

Quickly, Bobby turned around, and was absolutely astonished by who he saw. There stood Gambit with a smile on his face. Bobby had no idea how the New Orleans thief had reached New York so quickly, but it was good to see him, regardless. Gambit had helped the X-men in the past, and he clearly had mutant powers of his own.

"Hey, Iceman." Gambit said, which was all the introduction that would pass between them on that day, "I got a plan, if you want to help me with it."

Iceman wasn't sure what Gambit was planning, but he knew that he needed a strategy of some kind, and he'd never been very good at drawing plans of his own.

"Alright." Iceman replied with a smile to match Gambit's, "What's the plan?"

"How much ice can you make?" Gambit inquired.

"How much do you need?" Bobby asked, grinning arrogantly.

"Think you can trap the big guy in the middle of a block of ice?" Gambit suggested back.

"Not for very long." Bobby replied, "He's tougher than Piotr. I'm sure he'd break out in no time."

"That's alright." Gambit said, still smiling, "I don't need much time for what I've got planned. You just ice him up. I'll take care of the rest."

"Okay." Bobby said. From that point on, Bobby wouldn't question it. Gambit was a friend of the X-men. If he said he had a plan, Bobby was willing to go along with it.

Quickly, the water of the ocean started to change, warping and freezing into ice, as Bobby pointed his hands in the direction of the waves. In moments, the water was freezing solid around the legs of Galactus, and ice was rising up around his body. Bobby strained and struggled to make more and more ice, but he was running out of power. The best he was able to manage was to construct a thin sheet of ice; about a foot thick, over Galactus' entire body.

"So what's the plan?" Bobby asked, as the ice froze over Galactus. He was exhausted from the feat, but Gambit seemed ready to take advantage of it.

"I just needed him to stand still for a while." Gambit replied with a smile, pulling a playing card from the pocket in his shirt. At once, the card started glowing brightly, and then, a moment later, Gambit had thrown the card into the air, towards Galactus. As it sailed out over the ocean, a small section of the card started emitting flames, propelling it forward like a tiny rocket. Bobby had never seen a mutant power like that before, but in moments, the playing card had traveled almost fifty yards out to sea, where it landed on Galactus' leg, and that was when the card exploded.

The shimmering playing card was relatively small, and when it hit Galactus, it made an explosion much larger than Bobby would have given it credit for. The explosion, Bobby realized, must have been at least four yards across. Still, as it died down, Bobby had to admit that it didn't seem to have helped their situation much. Galactus was still standing there, mostly covered in ice, but generally unharmed. In fact, compared to Galactus, the explosion had been pretty small and weak.

"No offense..." Bobby said with a glance over at Gambit, "but that was pretty pathetic."

Gambit's smile just grew broader as he muttered "Wait for it..."

At first, Bobby wasn't even sure what Gambit was trying to say, but when he looked back at Galactus, he saw a major difference. All of the ice covering Galactus' body had started to glow, just like the card that Gambit had thrown. If, Bobby realized, the ice was going to react just like the card had, they were in for quite a show.

Soon, however, Gambit had grabbed Bobby from behind, yanking him behind a nearby building, and that was when the ice exploded. Bobby had expected some of the ice fragments to scatter, but there hadn't been any. Whatever had caused the explosion hadn't left behind even a single shard of ice. Bobby could feel the vibrations in the air as the explosion filled the harbor, the sheer force of the blast splitting the water that had surrounded the ice, and causing a massive wave to hit the docks, rising up and splashing into the city.

For a moment, both Bobby and Gambit had to hold on tight to the nearest telephone pole, because the water in that section of the city was about nine feet tall. It was only a few moments before the water level started to go down, but it was long enough that Bobby and Gambit were both soaked and covered in salt water, which was eroding Bobby's ice armor pretty rapidly. It was several seconds before Bobby was able to say even a single word.

"Whoa!" Bobby exclaimed, once he'd gotten his breath back, "That was amazing!"

"That's my other mutant power." Gambit replied, "Of course, it'd blow my cover if I used it on a job, so I don't really use it much, but I keep training with it just in case."

"My body sends electric charges into things I touch." Gambit explained, "The charges change the way the object's built, so that after a few moments, every single bit of energy in it just goes boom. If I concentrate, I can even pass that charge to other objects after the first one, but I have to plan it all out in advance."

"That must take a lot out of you." Iceman replied, struggling to get to his feet without slipping, "Making explosions that big, I mean."

"Nah." Gambit said, still grinning, "All the energy is in the thing from the start. All I do is bring it out. It takes concentration, but I'll bet I could charge stuff all day long if I had to."

For a few more seconds, Bobby kept staring at Gambit in amazement. It was a strange kind of mutant power, but at least it had been effective. That was when Bobby started to notice that he and Gambit weren't alone. Psylocke and Shadowcat had washed up on shore, along with all the water. They were struggling to breathe, but at least they would survive.

However, just then, a bright light seemed to bathe that entire section of New York City, and Iceman realized with disappointment that the survival of his friends wasn't guaranteed after all. Quickly, he turned to face the source of the light, but in just a moment, a massive, invisible force had lifted him off his feet.

* * *

Magik had been watching the entire fight from just outside the borders of the city. She'd taken an interest in the X-men, in what they'd been doing, and in the foes they fought, but Galactus was the first enemy that she'd ever seen since leaving Limbo who seemed to truly be on her level. Every attack leveled against him was deflected, or undermined with a vast, calculating intelligence. Galactus was obviously very old and experienced in the use of his powers, and at that point, Illyana wanted to face him, if only to determine whether she was really strong enough to remain unopposed on Earth.

Or rather, Illyana was trying to convince herself that those were her only reasons for fighting Galactus. In reality, she had quite a few other reasons as well. When she'd first been drawn into Limbo, Illyana's philosophy had been sculpted by what she'd experienced over the course of her teenage years. She'd eventually come to realize that exposure to a sufficient degree of suffering and struggle was enough to drive anyone to accept a hopeless, survivalist mentality that worshiped evil as a dogma. However, she'd assumed that her experiences in Limbo had shaped the person she was going to be for the rest of her life. She'd accepted the idea that Limbo had taught her everything she needed to know to survive in the world, but since her return to Earth, new experiences had taught her that, perhaps, that wasn't the case.

Illyana had felt compassion for several people since her return from Limbo, which would have been considered a shameful thing in that daemon reality, and she'd even felt humiliated and clueless a number of times when others had described joy and happiness to her. Once, she was ashamed to admit, she'd felt a bit of hope when she'd watched her brother traveling into space to do battle with Magneto, but what ashamed her even more was how good that feeling had been. She'd wanted it to continue, and never stop, yet she knew she couldn't let that happen. She had to discipline herself better than that.

Illyana had been taught that hope, joy, and happiness were nonconstructive feelings, that only weakened the abilities of a warrior, but her experiences with Anna had led her to question those teachings a bit. Anna had been so confident in her viewpoint, that she'd laughed in Magik's face, and for some reason, Magik didn't want to just assume that Anna was being foolish or naive. Although she'd been trapped in an enclosure at the time, she'd still seemed to have some wisdom hidden in her expression, almost as if she was much older than she looked. Someone had gotten the better of Anna, and yet, Magik realized, she knew something that no daemon in Limbo had ever known.

When Magik had come to grips with that concept, she knew that her journey of self-improvement wasn't over. There was more than she still had to learn. If the X-men turned out to be even partly right, and Magik found out about it later, then letting Galactus consume the Earth would be a mistake that Magik would never be able to recover from. Even with her most powerful spells, she couldn't destroy, create, or restore an entire planet, which meant that protecting the Earth was important, even for her.

Illyana had felt it when Gambit's attack had produced a massive explosion all around the body of Galactus, breaking open his immortal flesh, and liberating the two X-men who he'd captured. In that moment, the physical form of Galactus had been nearly destroyed, but at the same time, Galactus had done what he always did when his body was damaged in some way; he traveled into another reality, in which there was very little mass, and time passed much more quickly. In that reality, he allowed his injuries to heal themselves, as if in the blink of an eye, then returned to the physical world. However, Magik was able to see that reality too.

In just a moment, Illyana used her natural mutant power, and teleported to that reality in pursuit of the invader. It might, she reasoned, be her only chance to confront him without the others getting involved. Soon, she'd used a powerful spell to increase her size and mass to match his own, and the two faced each other. Galactus still looked largely disinterested, but he acknowledged the fact that she'd reached his location by using her unique abilities.

"Galactus." Magik noted aloud in the near-void of that reality, "The planet Earth is the world I was born on. I won't let you destroy it."

However, as Magik said that, Galactus started to look marginally distracted. He wasn't worried in any way, but he did seem aware of what she'd just said, and yet, confused by something about her words. Then Galactus spoke, and his words chilled Magik to her very bones, because of the casual, offhanded way that the ancient one said them.

"Who are you?"

"I am Magik; high queen of all the daemons of Limbo." Illyana replied, trying to bolster her own ego, which was already draining away under Galactus' gaze, but that comment did seem to have drawn a glimmer of recognition from the ancient one's eyes.

"The reality of Belasco the merciless?"

"I was the one who overpowered him and took his throne." Magik replied with a grin, but her grin was destined to be short-lived.

"I'm not surprised." Galactus said, "He always was a fool."

"In terms of knowing how to pick his enemies, I'm inclined to agree." Illyana admitted with a shrug, but Galactus just shook his head.

"Belasco was a fool in every way that a sentient being can be." Galactus insisted, "I studied him somewhat when I consumed a world that he seemed to have conquered. His history is hardly interesting. He was one of the first beings ever created, but there are two paths that a mighty being can take when they're given life. Either they can follow their destiny, seeking, then accepting their role in the universe, or they can rebel against it, and accomplish nothing."

"Belasco chose the latter path. He was convinced that the creator of existence; the One Above All was not truly invincible, and could be defeated with sufficient physical power, which in turn, could be acquired by sorcery. He was so convinced of that, that he didn't wait for evidence before he rebelled, building his own reality around himself, and shutting himself off from the cosmic forces of our reality. I, however, chose a different path."

"I accepted the duty that I'd been made for, and in fulfilling that duty, I've seen millions of worlds, cataloging the beings and forces that influenced them. From that study, I've gained a knowledge of the universe that exceeds any other, and from that knowledge, I can tell you this; even the magic wielded by cosmic daemons is not sufficient to challenge the will of the One Above All. His power isn't magical in nature. It's thought and will itself; manifested through a void of causality, though I don't suspect a simple battle dog like you will understand such technical truths about the universe."

"Leave this planet now." Illyana said darkly, certain that she was being insulted.

"You overstep your authority considerably." Galactus replied with a look of disdain, "This world isn't Limbo; it's not yours to rule. It's for me to consume as I wish. If you choose to challenge my will; a mistake that even that fool Belasco never made, you'll see the difference between a rebellious hound, and a strong-willed being who knows his duty."

Once again, it was back to the subject of duty and honor. Those were things that Anna had mentioned; things that Belasco had insisted were worthless, as long as fear was involved. Illyana knew, at that point, that the fight with Galactus would prove one thing at least. It would prove whether Belasco had been teaching Illyana anything worthwhile or not.

"If you want to destroy the Earth, we have to fight." Illyana replied, at which point Galactus simply nodded.

In just a moment, Illyana had drawn her soul sword, and was swinging it at Galactus in a wide arc. However, as she did so, she found, for the first time, that her sword had stopped midway through a swing. Something had appeared, that it couldn't cut through so easily.

The object that had appeared was a large, glowing shield, easily the size of a small building, and it was defending the top half of Galactus' body from one side.

"That sword..." Galactus noted, his eyes widening slightly as he saw it, "So that's why Belasco lost to you. Your sword is made of a highly-organized form of power cosmic, which retains its form even when consumed; very much like a human soul. I'm amazed that you were able to craft such a thing. Even I can't establish such an ironclad form for power cosmic."

"This sword is made from a bit of my soul." Illyana replied, "I created so that I could cut whatever I wanted, including Belasco."

When Illyana said that, though, Galactus seemed to be losing interest.

"What you do with your soul is little concern of mine," Galactus replied, "although I'm convinced that you've wasted its potential in crafting this blade. The purpose of a soul is to establish a mortal's continued existence in an everlasting, eternal form. If yours is still able to fulfill that function after being divided, you should count yourself fortunate."

However, Illyana wasn't all that concerned with what Galactus was saying. What concerned her a lot more was that the ancient one was able to stop her sword from cutting him. He'd used his power cosmic to form a shield, forcing her sword to keep away. He was the first enemy who'd ever had such a defense from that form of attack.

"If this sword is the most powerful weapon that you possess," Galactus said at last, "Then you're wasting our time by continuing this pointless battle. There's still time for you to escape from planet Earth before I devour it."

"Not a chance." Illyana replied angrily as she sheathed her sword. It was true that the sword had always succeeded before, but there was also her magic to fall back on, in case it failed.

Quickly, Illyana started using her magic to call up fire and lighting, directing the destructive natural forces at Galactus. However, he seemed to have lost interest in the fight by that point, and when Illyana fired a bolt of pure eldritch energy at Galactus, concealed by the fire and electric charge, he hadn't moved an inch to even attempt to dodge it.

For a moment, Illyana thought that she might be making some headway against the titan from space, but just then, the attacks she'd leveled at Galactus all seemed to have vanished, reappearing behind him, and continuing to fly backwards, away from him. Illyana was astonished, and deeply confused.

"What?" Illyana demanded to know, "How in the pit did you do that?"

However, by that point, Galactus seemed to have come to some understanding of the teenage mutant's life, because he frowned sternly at her.

"When you arrived here; following me to this reality, I knew that it was a feat that no magic spell could accomplish. That's because magic is a somewhat bastardized form of power cosmic. It gives one the power to cheat the rules of reality, but only on a small scale. There are larger rules, that no magic spell of any sort can break; rules set in motion by the power cosmic that makes up the universe. You've broken one of those rules with the mutant power than you possess; the ability to project a field that alters the quantum signature of whatever is inside of it, allowing you to travel to other realities. However, what you've failed to realize is that I possess the same ability, and I'm capable of using it for much more. I can warp the positions in space, and even in time of objects around me by using projected fields, which change vibrations and gravitational relativity by the strength and flexibility of my power cosmic. I have greater abilities as well, but these should be enough. You're helpless against me."

"You still can't hurt me." Illyana replied with a frown, "Nobody can kill me anymore."

"You may be referring to the item around your neck, which grants you the ability to recover from devastating injuries." Galactus replied casually, "I assure you, it's meaningless. Although even I can't remove it from its current position, I can warp the passage of time around it."

Sure enough, as Galactus said that, Illyana felt the grip of the necklace around her neck weakening, as the metal suffered fatigue, corrosion, and rust from extreme age. At last, it had eroded into a mere collection of scattered minerals, which fell to the ground at Illyana's feet in a cascade, like sand.

It was true, then. Illyana had done her best, but Galactus was her better in every way. He'd withstood her greatest weapons and attacks, proven his ability to undermine the limits of her most powerful enchanted items, and in that moment, Illyana knew that Galactus could kill her with a thought.

Even though he'd been injured when he'd arrived in that reality, Illyana had been helpless against Galactus; unable to even slow down his regenerative process, or make it even a little harder for him to consume the world.

"Begone." Galactus said at last, as Illyana stared at him in fear, "Leave this reality, and never challenge my will again. Remember your place from this day forward. You're only the queen of a fool's dream, founded in ignorance and deception."

At that point, Illyana was too scared to respond, but she had no reason to stay in Galactus' healing realm any longer. If she survived the day, she realized, Galactus would have done her a massive favor. For the first time in her life, Illyana truly understood her place in the universe. She wasn't a little girl, admiring her brother's strength anymore, and she certainly wasn't some incredible, cosmic queen, who could accomplish whatever she wanted with her strength. Galactus had proven that Illyana had many weaknesses, and more importantly, he'd proven that she didn't have the right to think highly of herself. Illyana Rasputin was a mutant girl with some knowledge of magic; nothing more, and if anyone managed to stop Galactus from consuming the Earth, she knew what she wanted to do with the rest of her life.

* * *

After the explosion at the harbor, even Xavier had started to hold out hope that Galactus might have truly been destroyed, but soon, the smoke had faded, and there stood the giant from space, just as invulnerable and bored-looking as ever. In another moment, each of the X-men had been lifted into the air by some kind of invisible force, and soon, they were all in the ocean just outside of New York, though Galactus seemed to simply be ignoring them by that point. Quickly, Xavier directed Henry Mccoy to take the blackbird down and rescue the X-men, who were all floating in the ocean, as he sent a telepathic message to Doctor Strange.

"I'm sorry, Strange." Xavier said sadly, "We've done our best, but it hasn't worked out. I hope you have better luck."

Strange silently acknowledged Xavier's report, asking him to retreat from the battlefield as quickly as possible, so that the Avengers could make one last attempt. If they failed, it might well be the end of the world, but in the meantime, Xavier knew, there was no point in waiting for the battle to finish. The role of the X-men in the plan to stop the cosmic titan was over.

However, as the blackbird started to lower ropes towards the mutants who were trying to stay afloat in the water without swallowing any of it, Xavier noticed that more than one person there surprised him. Somehow, Gambit had managed to reach New York in time to be of some assistance, and there was one other person there who wasn't an X-man; Anna-Marie Darkholme.

Xavier was somewhat confused by that. As far as he knew, Anna had gone with the Avengers, to try to help them with their plans. It didn't make sense for her to be there with the X-men, and yet, there she was, looking exhausted, as if she'd just been fighting for her life, like the rest of them had. Regardless, Xavier had her brought aboard. He hoped that she wasn't trying to trick him, but if she was, he was determined to be ready for it.

None of the other X-men seemed terribly pleased by the idea of having Anna aboard, but Xavier had shown them a telepathic vision of what had happened to her the night before, so most of them were at least ready to give her a chance. For the moment, they all retreated from the harbor of New York, and pulled away in the blackbird, as Strange had asked Xavier to, and none of them were feeling all that great. After all, they'd fought for the survival of their world, and lost. Still, they'd given it their best shot, and no one there regretted that.

Soon, the blackbird was over a dozen miles from New York, and Xavier could sense that the battle was continuing without the help of the X-men. Even so, he wasn't about to go straight back to the Institute. The fight had been lost, but there was still the chance that the X-men might be needed. They were, Xavier decided, going to stay within a minute's distance from New York City's skyline until the day was over, no matter how that day ended.

* * *

For a moment, Jubilee wasn't sure what to think. Kurt still looked just as calm and confident as he had on the way over, despite the fact that his new teleportation tricks had proven ineffective against the world-devourer. In fact, if anything, he looked a bit happier after having lost, and after all that the two had gone through, Jubilee couldn't just let that sit.

"We lost, you know." Jubilee said to Kurt, who was sitting right next to her. His smile didn't even start to fade, however, when he heard her say that.

"Perhaps in the short term," Kurt replied, "but as I said before we left the mansion, Galactus will not destroy this world, and I believe that our attempts to stop him have made us stronger. We're more devoted to each other than ever, and the X-men have more than doubled in number since this morning. If we can stick together, and continue to follow the right path, we have a bright future ahead of us."

Jubilee certainly hadn't thought of it like that. She was nowhere near as confident as Kurt was that Galactus could be stopped, and yet, even though she kept trying to believe that Kurt was only fooling himself, there was a calmness; a relief in that apparent self-deception of Kurt's. It brought him peace of mind, and for just a fraction of a second, Jubilee wished that she could have had that peace of mind for herself.

* * *

Dazzler had felt pretty helpless during the entire affair, even when she'd been doing her part, and that feeling of helplessness had followed her back into the Blackbird after the fight had ended. Dazzler hated feeling helpless, and it had been a while since she'd truly given in to feelings like those. Ever since she'd first started attending the Xavier Institute, she'd found her mutant powers comforting. They didn't give her the power to do whatever she wanted, but at least she didn't feel defenseless against bullies or thugs. However, on that day, she'd faced the problem of feeling helpless once again, and it was just as terrifying as always. She wasn't sure how to cope with it.

In that respect, Alison Blaire really had to admire Bobby. No matter what happened to him, he never let it get him down, and he never lost confidence in himself. Bobby Drake believed in his ability to do whatever he set his mind to, and that belief was far more impenetrable than any icy armor he'd ever made. For a moment, Alison wondered if the X-men's defeat had shaken Bobby as badly as it had her, so she leaned over her seat towards him, and addressed him politely.

"Bobby? Excuse me..." Alison said.

"Huh?" Bobby asked, "Ally? What's up?"

"Well, I was wondering..." Alison began, "I mean... How do you feel about what just happened?"

"I wish we'd stuck around, but I trust the professor." Bobby replied offhandedly. That, Alison decided, hadn't really answered her question.

"But we lost." Alison objected, "I mean, how did you feel about that?"

"No. We didn't really lose." Bobby replied, "The big guy just got a lucky shot in. I'll bet I could still have kicked his butt if I could get another chance."

That was when Alison finally started to see the truth about Bobby Drake. No matter how strong the enemy was, or how obvious the defeat, nothing was going to rob him of his naiveté. Nothing was going to convince him that there were things he couldn't do. It wasn't that he was good at avoiding the truth or anything like that. It just wouldn't have occurred to him to question his own abilities, and if anyone tried to tell him the truth straight out, he never would have believed it.

Bobby Drake could never be made to feel truly discouraged. In that respect, he was invincible. To someone else, he might have come off as being oblivious, but at least, Alison realized, he was oblivious in a way that made him feel really confident and good. She couldn't help but admire that.

* * *

"How are you feeling, Scott?" Jean asked, a little worried about him as the two sat next to each other in the blackbird.

"I don't know." Scott replied, "I guess I'm a little scared. If we survive through the night, I'll probably be fine, though. This whole trip has been really stressful."

Jean wasn't sure how to reply to that. More than any of the X-men, Scott Summers had always struck her as being the one who was most able to handle stressful situations. His firm self-discipline and great commitment to Professor Xavier's dream, and to the safety and wellbeing of the X-men sometimes made him seem less like a teenage boy, and more like a war veteran, though. No member of the X-men understood duty quite like he did, and yet, on that mission, his desperation had been so thick, that Jean had felt it without even trying. Jean had always looked to Scott for inspiration in difficult times. To see him so worried was a blow to her own confidence.

"Scott..." Jean said, a little nervous herself, "Do you want to share another astral experience? It might cheer you up."

That, however, was when Scott Summers seemed to have arrived at another important decision, and he straightened up in his seat, his fear disappearing as he shook his head firmly.

"No." Scott replied, "It's fun to share astral experiences during our free time, but I can't let myself become addicted to them. The fact that we can share that together is really special to me, Jean, and I don't want to risk losing it, but I can't do that with you while we're on a mission. It's unprofessional, and it's a waste of energy."

In some ways, Scott's response had made Jean a little sad, but in other ways, she was glad that he'd said it. Once again, Scott Summers had taken the monumental responsibility of leading the X-men, and of doing his duty. He was an inspiring figure once more, and in its own way, that was also helping the two of them to grow closer.

* * *

Piotr was still gazing out one of the windows of the blackbird with a frown on his face, as the violent vibrations of battle started to reach them from New York. In some ways, he wished that he could have been strong enough to be part of that last fight, but as long as the fight was won, it didn't make that much difference to him. Piotr was really more artist than fighter, and ever since Illyana had returned, his struggles had centered more around trying to restore a sense of family to his life than actually challenging any physical enemies. The X-men were almost family-like in their own way, of course, but real family members were, to him, just as important, because of how long it had been since he'd had any that he could depend on.

"Are you alright?" Ororo asked from the seat next to his.

"I've just realized the magnitude of what could happen if this battle is lost." Piotr admitted, as he leaned back in his seat again, looking exasperated, "I've spent so long trying to reunite as much of my family as possible, and I never imagined that any of this could happen. If Galactus consumes the Earth, my family will end, just like that. Every human family everywhere will just come to an end, and all the evidence that any of them ever existed will simply disappear. For so long, I've seen family as such an important thing, and since it looks like we might all lose everything... I wonder if anything was really that important to begin with. What were we fighting for this whole time?"

"I don't know." Ororo replied, "I fought for what I believed in, because it was all I could really do. I believed in protecting the X-men, and helping people try to coexist in peace. I believed in helping the people I care about most, because I'm human, and I can't help but become attached to the people in my life. I think that if I didn't become attached to people, I wouldn't have to be so afraid of betrayal. I mean, betrayal only hurts when you trust someone to begin with."

"You were always afraid of being betrayed and left alone?" Piotr asked, growing interested, as Ororo talked. Ororo just nodded in reply.

"I'm not scared of much," Ororo admitted, "but the idea of losing the people I care about really terrifies me. I guess if the whole world is destroyed, though... If that happens, I don't really lose anything."

Piotr felt a little confused when Ororo said that, however, so he inquired "You don't lose anything? What do you mean?"

"Well, I guess my faith in the supernatural was never as strong as Kurt's until we got lost in Limbo a while back..." Ororo replied, looking a little nervous as she spoke, "but I was only really worried about being separated from the people I care about. Galactus is either going to consume the planet, or he won't, but either way, what's left of humanity will basically stay together. Even if we all die, I don't really think we'd get separated. We're all connected by invisible bonds, and I don't think that even death could destroy them. We're the X-men."

Piotr wasn't sure what to say in response to that. Ororo's words made some sense to him, because he was used to thinking about things in that kind of manner, and it was all well and good for her to say that she thought they'd all stay together in some form, even once they were dead, but Piotr wouldn't have even mentioned his worries if he'd believed that quite as strongly as she did.

However, as Piotr looked for another moment into Ororo's eyes, he recognized the look of great hope on her face, and more than just recognizing that look, he started to feel some of that hope himself. For a moment, Piotr tried to ignore those feelings, that he seemed to be picking up from Ororo, but at last, he just gave in. He was an X-man, just like her, and he didn't see any reason to rain on her parade. It was possible that her optimism might be rubbing off on him, and really, that idea didn't worry him that much.

"Alright." Piotr replied, after a few seconds spent in silence, "No matter what happens, the X-men stay together."

Then, just like that, Ororo put one hand in Piotr's, and the two of them sat together in silence, listening to the thunderous impacts continuing in the distance.

* * *

Xavier had kept Anna in the cockpit of the blackbird until the impacts started to die away. For a few moments, there was total silence, and it was only then that Xavier noticed that Anna was beginning to wake up.

Quickly, Professor Xavier turned his wheelchair to face her, mild interest showing on his face as her eyes fluttered open.

"I'm glad to see you've recovered." Xavier said, though he showed no signs of actually being glad to see Anna at all, "Maybe now you can give me some answers. What happened? I thought you were with Thor."

Anna, however, shook her head slowly, getting to her feet groggily, as she looked Professor Xavier up and down in amazement.

"Professor?" Anna asked in astonishment, "Professor Xavier? Is that you?"

"Yes." the professor replied quickly, "Henry and I fished you out of the ocean. What happened exactly? Where's Thor?"

"Thor?" Anna asked, suddenly donning a puzzled look, "Why would ah know where Thor is?"

"The two of you were together just a few hours ago." Xavier reminded her, "Did Galactus defeat him?"

It was only then that a glimmer of recognition came into Anna's eyes, and for a moment, a broad, relieved smile started to spread across her face.

"Galactus?" Anna asked in delight, "Galactus is here on Earth, right now?"

"Unfortunately, yes." Xavier replied, looking very serious, as Anna asked that question, "We've been trying to drive him away, but we haven't had much success."

However, by that point, Anna truly was smiling. She knew something that she wasn't telling Xavier about Galactus, and her experiences over the last several hours, but Xavier still didn't want to make any attempt to read her thoughts, because he was afraid of how she'd react if he tried that without her permission. In just a moment, however, Anna seemed to have made a decision about what to tell Xavier.

"Don't worry, professor." Anna said with a smile, "Ah have to go do what I can to help in the fight, but y'all should stay here for now. We have one last plan for getting Galactus to leave, and it's almost guaranteed to work, but if we need to worry about protecting the X-men, it might not work out."

"I've already told Doctor Strange that I have no intention of attacking Galactus again, unless he asks me to." Xavier replied, "You should go help the Avengers if you still think you're up to it."

"Yes. Ah should be alright." Anna replied, nodding as she headed for the exit of the plane. In just a moment, she'd flown away, towards the battlefield, but there was still one thing that Xavier didn't quite understand. He could have sworn that he'd sensed Anna's presence in New York several times while she'd been sitting on the floor of the Blackbird.

"Is it really her?" Xavier wondered silently, "Is she an impostor? Why would anyone want to impersonate Anna? No one trusts her."

Those were the questions that filled Professor Xavier's head, as he sat in the blackbird, waiting for news of the battle's final result.

* * *

To Be Continued...


	27. X Men 11: Nonlinear

X-Men Neo

Issue 11

"Nonlinear"

* * *

Anna Marie thought, for a moment, that she must have still been dreaming as she woke up in a warm, soft bed; a different bed from the one she usually slept in. That was a very unusual experience. It was her bed; the one that the professor had given to her. She remembered it well. In fact, the very idea that it was something that had been given to her freely had led her to form an idealized picture of it in her mind after a while. It was just as soft and comfortable as she remembered, though.

Quickly, Anna was up, dressing herself in the clothes that had been provided for her. She couldn't help but smile as she put them on, because she'd worn the same thing for so long, that it was nice to just be able to do a simple thing like change her own shirt. Even simple freedoms were pleasant and beautiful since she'd spent so long without them. Anna couldn't take them for granted anymore.

A lot of things felt new and fresh to Anna on that morning, because she'd missed them so sorely; the bed, the clothes, the wood of the dresser touching her fingertips... Even the simple sight of the morning sun was a delight for her. She hadn't seen real sunlight in quite some time.

There were a few other things that Anna still missed, however. News of the world was one of those things. She also missed the genuine, hot meals that she'd once enjoyed, and there was one more thing that she sorely missed; the touch of another person's mind and spirit to her own. Though Anna knew that most of her suffering was due to that, she couldn't give up her favorite pastime. There was something that she had to do that morning, before anything else.

* * *

Logan heard the sound of a body hitting the floor the moment that it happened, and at once, he rushed from his room, towards the location of the problem. There, he saw, was Sean Cassidy, lying on the floor in what looked like a coma. The sight drew out an immediate fury in Logan, and he quickly started to sniff the air. Being in a school, however, there were so many scents, that there was no telling who was responsible that way. Logan cursed, but then Sean gave a quick convulsion, and started to wake up. Logan was a little surprised by Sean's quick recovery, but he was also pleased to see that the young mutant was alright, so he bent over to help the kid up.

"Hey." Logan said, as he helped Sean get to his feet, "What's the problem? Who did this?"

Sean groaned a little when Logan asked that, but before long, he was sitting up and able to speak intelligibly.

"M'not sure. I couldn't see. Whatever it was, it moved really fast."

That, Logan decided, was all he needed to hear, as he stormed off towards Professor Xavier's office.

* * *

"Enough's enough, Chuck." Logan said, as soon as he'd set one foot in the office of the Xavier Institute's headmaster, "You've gotta do something about this."

"Logan." Xavier remarked, as he looked up from the newspaper he'd been reading with a sad expression on his face, "I see you found Mister Cassidy."

"We both know what's going on, Chuck." Logan said angrily, a moment later, "Why'd you let this continue?"

Xavier, however, seemed to understand what Logan meant. After just a few seconds, he put down his newspaper. There was an article there, in one of the pages of the paper; the title reading "Rash of bizarre fainting spells continues in Westchester."

"I hoped that she might get tired of this after a while, I suppose..." Xavier admitted at last, though he didn't look at Logan when he spoke, "I also wanted to show her some leniency after she gave us so much help in the fight against Galactus. However, you're right. This has already gone on long enough. We'll need to speak to her about what she's been doing. Although she hasn't caused permanent injuries to anyone while she's been living here, Anna Marie can't be allowed to keep rendering people unconscious like this. It's inconvenient at best; potentially hazardous at worst."

At once, Xavier closed his eyes, and send out a telepathic message across the institute grounds, to the one person he most wanted to talk to...

"Anna Marie Darkholme. Please come to my office at once."

Sure enough, it just a second, Anna was standing there with Logan and Xavier, looking a little puzzled, and somewhat sad. She clearly had some idea of what was about to follow.

"It's been almost three weeks now." Xavier said to Anna as he looked at her from across his desk, "Don't you think you should stop this nonsense?"

Anna really swallowed by that point. She should have realized that she couldn't hide things from Professor Xavier. Not only was he a telepath, but he was extremely intelligent. Getting things by him was no simple matter.

Quickly, Anna collapsed in a nearby armchair, and looked at her feet with shame in her eyes. Logan seemed surprised by how quickly the young mutant was reacting to the reprimand. Xavier had figured out what she'd been doing, and just like that, Anna was showing remorse. She almost looked like she was struggling to kick some kind of drug addiction.

"Ah guess ah couldn't keep it from you." Anna said, "Ah don't know what to say. When ah touch people for just a few seconds, they get a short nap, and ah feel like ah can touch their mind and soul. That's what it's like for me. You can't know how special that is; how it feels. It's like... For once, ah'm close to somebody. Ah use mah mutant powahs, and it feels real good."

"We have other ways to be close to people." Xavier replied, "People in our lives. People we trust."

"Ah don't." Anna replied, "Ah can never get close to anybody, and nobody trusts me. Besides, ah learned mah lesson. Ah'm not hurting anyone, am ah?"

"You can't be sure of that." Xavier explained, just a moment later, looking very severe, as he spoke, "The last person you hit with your mutant power might have been about to go to an important meeting, or he might have been about to tell the police something crucial, or he might have been a surgeon, about to go save someone's life. You can't use your mutant powers on other human beings anymore, Anna, no matter how good it feels."

In that moment, however, Anna looked up into Xavier's eyes, and there was a fiery defiance in her gaze; an inhuman glare that spoke of deep discontent with that reply.

"So you're saying mah mutant powahs are evil." Anna said, in what sounded like contempt.

"I'm saying no such thing," Xavier replied, "but there are some mutant powers that shouldn't be used. I, for instance, could use my powers to control the thoughts of everyone I know, but I would never abuse them that way."

"Mah powahs don't have a good use anymore." Anna replied, "You can read people's thoughts, talk to folks from across the whole world, see what they see, share their experiences... Ah only have one powah. Ah kill. If ah hold back, ah just knock a person out for a few minutes, but ah can't use mah powahs any other way. If y'all wanna tell me that both of those things are wrong, you're saying that mah powahs are bad. Don't try to sugah-coat it."

Xavier wasn't sure how to reply to that, although Logan looked a little disappointed by the professor's hesitation. He had something that he wanted to say, and clearly, Xavier's uncertainty was frustrating to him. To Logan, that hesitation was a clear sign that Charles Xavier didn't have the answers that he needed to solve Anna's problem. In fact, it didn't even look like Xavier had thought those problems over enough.

"Listen up." Logan said to Anna, when Xavier had fallen silent in thought, "You think that's all your powers can do? Knock people out and kill them? I'll bet they can do other things if you want 'em to."

"That's all the mutant powahs ah've got..." Anna argued, but Logan interrupted her quickly.

"Meet me outside in five minutes, and I'll show you something else that your powers can do; something that the professor won't get upset over."

Anna looked surprised, but she just nodded, and disappeared again, in a burst of great speed. A moment later, Xavier looked at Logan with an expression of deep worry on his face.

"Are you sure about this, Logan?" Xavier asked, "No matter what, her powers do nothing but harm to anyone she touches. I didn't want to say it while she was here, but I honestly can't think of a way for that kind of mutant power to be used constructively."

"You don't understand, Chuck." Logan replied with a disappointed frown on his face, "She's not worried about being able to use her powers to help folks; not really. She's got the gleam of a hunter in her eyes. She craves the adventure of pursuing prey, catching up to it, and..."

For a moment, Logan's nostrils flared a little, in appreciation of the kind of hunt he'd just been describing, but before long, he just gave a brief shrug, and headed for the front door, as it became obvious that Xavier didn't appreciate what Logan was talking about.

"Like I said, Chuck." Logan replied, with a smile that went down to his very core, "You don't understand."

* * *

Sunspot, Cannonball, and Wolvesbane had been training in the danger room for several hours, and they were all starting to feel a little exhausted. It had been a hard workout, and they'd all gotten the chance to use their mutant powers, although they hardly ever felt like their powers had been taxed to their limits. Each of them had been training their mutant powers since before they even joined the Xavier Institute, and they knew that they were ready to face big threats to the safety of the planet Earth. Still, none of them expected to find themselves in a battle again, so soon after the Galactus crisis.

As soon as the three young mutants left the danger room, they relaxed their mutant powers. Sam Guthrie had stopped using his inhuman momentum, Roberto Da Costa's dark aura had vanished, and Rahne Sinclair had transformed back to her normal, humanoid appearance. The three had gotten to know each other fairly well over the time they'd spent as students at the Xavier Institute, and especially in the last month, after they'd all joined the X-men. Sam was a sly, but kind soul with a good sense of humor. Roberto was a little emotional at times, but very confident in himself, and very friendly. Rahne was somewhat reserved, but once a conversation had been started, she had no difficulty continuing it. Some found her to be mousy, which was a little ironic by itself, however.

"Well, that wasn't a bad session, all in all." Sam said with a smile, "Ah think we got this in the bag."

"I don't see how you can say that." Rahne replied from where she was, "Especially after what happened a month ago."

"You mean against Galactus?" Roberto asked, "Even Thor couldn't beat him. We did really well."

"It's just not enough." Rahne insisted, "We need to be able to do better. Remember what the professor told us; mutant powers are like any other muscle, and they can grow stronger."

"I'm sure we'll pull through somehow." Roberto replied with a grin, but just then, he heard a voice from behind him. It was the voice of a teenage girl, who sounded even more grim than Rahne when she spoke. It was definitely Illyana Rasputin. Her thick Russian accent made it impossible to mistake her for anyone else in the mansion.

"Are you? Do you have any idea what kinds of enemies the X-men face on a regular basis? What kinds of powers they have to oppose? If not, I'll be happy to show you."

In just a moment, Roberto had turned to face Magik; the younger sister of Piotr; one of the founding X-men. Some of the X-men had assumed that she was the most powerful being on Earth for a long time, but there was no look of pride in her eyes, as she faced the three new additions to the X-men. Rahne looked a little worried by Magik's presence, so close to the danger room, and even Sam seemed unnerved, but Roberto had heard so much about Magik's powers, and her ferocious skill and strength, that he couldn't just leave things like that. Magik was a teenage girl; no older than him, and if she was going to wave her skills around like a banner, she'd have to at least demonstrate them. After so many months without any real battle training, Roberto decided, her skills must have diminished at least a little. Even if they hadn't, it would prove Roberto's own skill and power, if he could manage to hold his own in a fight with her.

With a smile, Roberto said "Why not? Alright. Let's have a fight then."

"Just the three of you?" Illyana asked, looking intrigued by the idea.

"No." Roberto replied, still smiling, "Just me. Show me what you've got, and I'll show you what I've learned here at the Institute."

Magik started to smile a little when she heard that. It certainly wasn't a friendly-looking smile, but a moment later, she simply replied, "Alright."

"So, do you want to fight right here in the danger room?" Roberto asked with a friendly-looking grin.

"No." Magik replied, no longer making any effort to smile, "There isn't enough room in there. We should fight in the open; either in New Zealand, or the great plains, or maybe the Sahara... Somewhere with a lot of space."

"Fine with me." Roberto replied, "How are we supposed to get there, though?"

"My mutant power is teleportation." Magik replied, "I can take us to any of those locations right now."

"Roberto?" Sam asked, unable to hide his concern completely, "Are you sure about this?"

"Yeah." Roberto replied, "I have to see this big, bad power of hers for myself."

"Can we come too?" Rahne asked, suddenly adopting a courageous tone of voice, "Just to watch, I mean?"

"Yes." Magik simply replied, and in just a second, a massive disc had spread out underneath all four mutants, and they'd vanished from the observation chamber of the danger room, and from Westchester as well.

* * *

In only a moment more, the four teenage mutants were out in the middle of an open plain; a large place with lots of wild grass, and plenty of sunlight. Illyana seemed convinced that that was more than enough space to unleash her full powers in, though she doubted that she'd have to.

"So what's the objective?" Roberto asked, as he started stretching, and soaking up the warm, bright sunlight, "Are there any special rules I need to know about?"

"No," Illyana replied, "Although if it takes me more than five minutes to overpower you, that'll be enough of a victory. Keep up with me for ten minutes, and I'll even admit that you won our little match."

"That's alright." Roberto replied cheerily, "I can handle myself without a handicap."

Illyana didn't say another word. Instead, she moved one foot forward, then disappeared.

Neither Sam nor Rahne had been expecting her to perform such a fast leap, and they'd lost track of her completely when she'd made her first move, lunging at Roberto with her full speed, but in just a moment, he collapsed backwards, onto the ground, just as Illyana soared right over him. She'd been aiming a kick at his head, but somehow, in spite of his calm, cheerful demeanor, Roberto had been paying close enough attention to Illyana, to keep track of her movements, even when she was charged with a spell of enhanced speed. In just another moment, she'd landed behind Roberto, as he leapt to his feet, and a second later, she drove her foot into the ground, causing a cloud of dirt to fly up into the air. Then, in another second, she dove towards him again, through the flying bits of dust and dirt, and aimed a punch at his head.

Roberto ducked out of the way of that first punch in a hurry, but Illyana reacted quickly, sweeping her entire arm around into a swift cross. Roberto tried to dodge that as well, but she managed to clip him on the side of the head, and even that small, glancing blow was enough to send powerful vibrations through his skull, and knock him through the air, to one side. As Illyana had knocked him away, Roberto was careful to go limp, while falling towards the ground, and in just a second more, she was pursuing him with another mid-air kick.

However, Roberto had been waiting for that. As soon as her leg got within arm's length of his chest, he struck it from underneath, changing her trajectory, and throwing her off-balance. In a moment, she'd landed on one hand, and tried to kick him again from that position, but he'd reacted just as quickly, using both arms to brace himself against the ground, and delivering two kicks at once. One kick deflected her first attack against him, and the other struck her in the back. Illyana winced as she took the blow, and quickly leapt to her feet, backing off just a little. Her strength and speed should have been greater than his, but for some reason, Roberto was keeping up with her, and neither one of them had used their more advanced powers yet.

"Let me give you some advice." Roberto said, though he didn't let down his guard for even a moment, "If you want to see my powers, stop taking it easy on me. I won't take this seriously until you do."

Illyana still didn't speak, however. Instead, she started to mutter something under her breath. In just a moment, bright lights and glittering crystalline objects were surrounding her hands. A second after that, Illyana had waved her hands through the air, and balls of fire, crystals of ice, and what looked like shining electric charges were hanging in the air all around her. In a moment longer, they'd begun to move.

Those weapons of fire, ice, and electricity didn't all head towards Roberto at once, however. At first, they merely rotated around Illyana, as her fists started glowing again. She was preparing another form of attack, even as those three attack-types encircled her. In only a moment longer, however, one of the many balls of fire broke loose from the others of its kind, and traveled in Roberto's direction like a comet. Roberto, however, didn't move a muscle as the supernatural attack homed in on him, and hit him dead-on in the chest.

For a moment, Illyana started to feel a little disoriented as the flames rose up around Roberto, eventually covering his entire body. She'd expected him to dodge the attack, or even use some of his mutant powers. However, as Roberto fell backwards in flames, Illyana knew that something about his defeat didn't look quite right. He didn't really seem to be falling fast enough. It didn't make sense.

Sure enough, just as Illyana was debating whether to continue her attack or not, the fire surrounding Roberto started to change color; first turning orange, then red, then fading to pitch black, and Illyana had a nasty feeling that that was one of Roberto's powers. Sure enough, a moment later, he'd shot forward through the air towards her; a pitch-black figure that, nonetheless, seemed to be on fire.

Illyana tried to prepare her attack quickly, but Roberto was moving too fast, and his ploy had distracted her too much. The only thing she could do, for the moment, was hope that her magic attacks could drive him back.

However, the fireballs seemed to only be making Roberto stronger, and the ice crystals were melting and turning to steam before they could even reach him. The electricity dispersed before it could make contact with his body. For once, Illyana realized that she had to focus on defending herself, rather than attacking her enemy. None of her more casual attacks were making any difference, and she needed time to prepare anything more serious than that.

Quickly, Illyana recited a spell in her thoughts, magnifying her natural strength and endurance a hundredfold, then lashing out with her fists against her oncoming enemy. She could feel the heat from his body pretty oppressively as he got closer to her, but when her fist made contact with his face, she knew that she would, at worst, receive minor burns from close contact with him; something that was easily fixed, once the battle was over.

The whole countryside shook, as Illyana punched Roberto, knocking him back away from her through the air. She'd managed to singe her fist just slightly while attacking him, but, she remembered, the first five minutes still hadn't passed, so she was still the winner, as long as he stayed down after that.

However, for the first time in months, Illyana's enemy had taken her hardest blow, then started moving again. Roberto was already starting to rise up from the ground, as if floating on a simple cushion of hot air, and in spite of all the dark flames that surrounded him, he didn't sound any less cheerful when he spoke.

"Yeah. That's what I thought. You're tough, Illyana. I wouldn't even feel most attacks in this form, but I felt yours just a little bit. If you've got something tougher than that, this could be a very even fight."

By that point, however, Illyana was definitely starting to get angry. It wouldn't distract her in battle, but it was enough to motivate her. She wasn't going to hold back anymore.

* * *

"Where are we going?" Anna asked, as she and Logan moved away from the institute at a brisk walking pace.

"Someplace we can't get to in a hurry." Logan replied, not answering her question at all, "Also, try not to make too much noise. It scares things off."

Anna had no idea what Logan was planning, but she went along with his game for the moment, until the two reached a heavily-forested area that looked like some kind of wrecking crew had gone through it only a short time ago.

Anna was just about to ask what Logan was planning again, but he held up one hand for silence before she could say a word, and started sniffing around, obviously trying to find something that was nearby, and in hiding. After a brief while, Logan stopped to listen, and seemed to have detected something, though he didn't tell Anna anything about what he was tracking, or what he had planned. Instead, he gave her a signal to wait just outside the woods, as he started to carefully sneak through the underbrush; his well-honed senses already homing in on his objective. Anna was left waiting outside the forest for several minutes at that point, but she didn't get bored. The smell of the fresh air and the trees made it much easier to tolerate any period of waiting; something that she had a lot of experience with by that point anyway.

Pretty soon, however, Logan had returned, and gestured to Anna to follow him, but to keep her voice down, and try to remain perfectly silent. It was a fresh type of experience for Anna, and that novelty alone made it somewhat pleasurable. She and Logan crept further and further into the woods, following a sort of indirect trail, which he seemed to have traced out in his mind. At first, Anna wasn't sure what Logan was even after, until she saw the creature in the woods.

Right in the middle of that heavily-wooded area was a large, brown rabbit. It was digging with its paws off and on, probably looking for food in the small area of the woods that surrounded it. For the moment, that tiny patch of ground was its whole world, and it wouldn't bother looking at anything else, until it was sure there wasn't anything there that it wanted, or until it heard someone approaching.

The moment that Anna had gotten a good look at the rabbit, Logan turned and headed back for the entrance to the forest, just as silently as on the way in. Anna wasn't sure what he was doing, but she continued to follow him until they'd left the main body of the woods. At that point, Logan straightened up, but he was almost nine yards from the forest before he spoke.

"So what are you going to do?" Logan inquired curiously.

"Huh?" Anna asked, "What are you talking about?"

"Kid, I've been where you are." Logan replied, "My problems were even worse, in fact. I'm like you. I've got mutant powers that don't mean much unless you want to hunt something down and kill it. My powers always forced me into things in my life. No matter what I wanted to do, there were things I had a natural gift for. I had a gift for hunting, and that's why, even now, even while I'm teaching school, I'm a hunter. I do it in my spare time, to keep my reflexes sharp, and to unwind and recover when something happens that makes me feel helpless and angry. In the hunt, I'm the king, but it's more than that too."

"There's something spiritual to hunting; something big and important. Getting up close to a wild animal; enough to be able to brush your fingers against its fur... That's really something. There's a clean beauty to focusing on the prey. It's a simple objective, and when my attention's on it, nothing else gets into my thoughts. Sometimes, I let the critter go, just out of mercy. Other times, I kill it, and when I do, I feel like there's a purpose to the whole thing. It's like a midpoint between life and death; the life cycle on Earth. One thing lives, and another dies. It's clean and sensible. When I feel that, I feel like I'm at my best, because the hunt can feel really good. It reminds me I've accomplished another victory over an opponent, whether I kill it or not."

For a moment, Anna didn't seem to know what to say. At last, however, she spoke, and she sounded a little confused.

"Why tell me all that?"

"Because I know what you're going through, kid." Logan said, grinning as he continued to look at Anna, "Maybe you don't have the instinct, or the same satisfied feeling when you hunt, but it's a part of your life, just like it's a part of mine. Nobody can tell you not to hunt, because it's in your blood. You've just gotta learn how to hunt, and when."

At that point, Logan gestured back towards the forest with one thumb, looking more or less indifferent, as he turned his back on Anna.

"Your prey's back there." Logan said, "I can show you the prey, and I can show you how to get close to it, but only you can decide whether or not you want to kill it. This time, you're the hunter. You're in command."

Anna was speechless again for a few seconds, but after only a brief period of hesitation, she'd disappeared, and from where he was, Logan could hear the sound of a rabbit panicking and squirming. It was, he knew, the first step. Anna was breaking her addiction to physical, human contact.

* * *

The plains trembled as Magik hurled a glacier towards Roberto, but nothing seemed to be able to break his smile. Although Magik had used her supernatural powers to transform into a giantess, and was wielding her most powerful spells against him, nothing that she did was doing much damage. The powers that she'd wielded in Limbo had seemed impressive from a distance, but with the right kind of defense against them, they meant nothing. Roberto was melting through any ice sent his way, absorbing any heat, and deflecting electric charges harmlessly, regardless of their size or intensity. It was a feat that very few mutants were capable of.

Of course, at that size, Magik's physical strength was great as well. She wasn't connecting with as many of her punches or kicks as she had been before, but the ones that connected were obviously hurting her opponent a lot more. Roberto could feel minor injuries forming along his torso, but it wasn't enough to keep him down, or even to make him stop smiling. Just getting to fight like that, with someone who'd once made the X-men tremble in their shoes was, he'd decided, a privilege.

However, Magik was clearly getting tired of trying to overpower Roberto, and was starting to get desperate for victory. At that point, there were only a few ways that she could really win within the time limit she'd set for herself, and she was starting to realize with dread that she had to make use of them all.

At once, a dozen bolts of pure, eldritch energy floated into the air around her, traveling in pursuit of Roberto, who flew freely through the air with all the speed he could muster, propelled by his own intense body heat. The sorcerous bolts got closer and closer to him, and he knew that contact with even one of them could mean death. Not only that, but Magik was drawing out her soul sword, and that was a major death-dealing weapon as well. As Roberto flew, the deadly magic energy pursued him, turning through the air as he did, but it wasn't quite as fast as him. In a moment, he'd led the flying, magical energy in a full circle around Illyana, and at last, he charged right at her. It seemed that she'd been expecting him to try a tactic like that, and was prepared to used her sword to cut him in two. That was the moment of truth for Roberto. He'd accepted that fight, knowing what it would mean, and one way or another, he was determined to see it through to the end.

At last, just as Magik was about to swing her sword, Roberto forced both hands out in front of him and channeled a massive force of heat energy into them, until the area in front of him burned with genuine fire. In only a fraction of a second, that fire had grown brighter and brighter, until it was generating such a bright light, that Magik couldn't even keep looking in his direction, much less attack him. She had to turn away.

That, however, was when Magik remembered the enchanted projectiles she'd fired at Roberto, which must have been headed in her direction. She knew that she needed to put up another magic barrier, in order to protect herself, but for that spell, she had to be able to move both arms in order to outline the size of the field. After that, Magik decided, she was going to cast a spell of response, and finish the fight.

Just as she had many times in the past, Magik spread her arms out to their full size and gestured; outlining a rough size and shape for the protective barrier that she wanted to create, and she felt a bit relieved by the sight of her own magical projectiles impacting on that barrier, but in just another second, as she prepared another spell, she felt something clamp down on the end of her left, middle finger. With an inhumanly strong yank, that something forced her hand open, and just like that, she'd dropped her soul sword.

Illyana tried to respond the the attack, but she wasn't even sure what it was, making it impossible to cast any spells or curses on it's source. Then, in one swift motion, the thing, whatever it was, had bent Illyana's whole arm around behind her back, and forced her to the ground on top of her other arm. Every time Illyana tried to break free of that hold, she was shoved against the ground even harder, and yet, it took her several seconds to realize the truth. She'd been powerful in Limbo, but Illyana was still vulnerable in her own world. She'd been beaten by Roberto Da Costa.

"I'll let go if you surrender." Roberto said, from the place where he stood behind her, pushing down on her hand.

It was humiliating, but in a way, Illyana found her failure liberating. Slowly, she gave as much of a nod as she could manage, and in moments, had begun shrinking down to her previous size once again; a few inches shorter than Roberto. It was only then that he made good on his word, and let her go.

The moment that Roberto released Illyana, still with a big, infuriating smile on his face, she wrenched herself loose from his grip, and stumbled forward a short ways. She made some feeble attempt to regain her balance, but eventually tripped over a ridge in one of the enormous footprints she'd made in the grassy field, and fell to the ground again, quickly sitting upright in the crushed grass all around her. Not too far off, she could see that Roberto was also sitting in the grass, looking very, very tired. His aura of dark flames had vanished, and he seemed pretty dazed and bewildered.

Sam and Rahne were approaching slowly from almost a mile off, as the two recent combatants sat on the ground, parallel to one another. Neither one was using their powers anymore. They were just sitting there, staring at each other, both obviously exhausted, sweaty, and covered in dirt and bits of grass. Just then, however, as Sam and Rahne got to within a few yards of the pair, something happened that no one had seen on Earth in years; something that no one on that battlefield had been expecting.

Illyana started to smirk, then a smile spread across her lips. In only a moment, that smile had transformed into a strangled kind of chuckle, then into open laughter. It wasn't an insincere or cruel kind of laughter, however. Illyana's laughing voice sounded genuinely young and mirthful; like the laughter of any other girl her age who was truly happy about something. It only took Roberto a moment to join in that laughter, though it was a while before Sam or Rahne felt like laughing.

* * *

Within a few hours, Logan was sitting in a big booth in a restaurant, smiling to himself. He'd finished his meal almost half an hour before, but the girl sitting across from him was still eating, and she showed no signs of slowing down.

"Man, kid." Logan finally said, as he looked across the table at Anna, "With an appetite like that, I'm surprised you let the rabbit go."

Anna paused for a moment in the soup she was eating, and dropped the spoon back into it. Sandwich plates and soup and salad dishes were stacked in a pile on one side of the table; having already done their job The soup in front of Anna was only her latest conquest.

However she quickly leaned back in her seat when Logan said that, and there was a look of interest on her face.

"Ah never thought of the rabbit as food." Anna admitted with a grin, "Ah was more concerned about mah problems; what ah wanted."

"See..." Anna continued, taking another spoonful of the soup as she explained herself, "Mah powahs activate whenever ah touch another living thing. Ah feel their mind and soul inside me, and they collapse. It's like they're a part of me for a while. It's a real nice sensation to have, so long's ah don't have to kill to get at it. It's the reason ah wanted to be able to use mah mutant powahs, even though ah know they knock people out for a while. Ah had to feel that, again and again. That's why ah took that Cassidy kid's powahs for a minute. Ah just wanted to feel his soul brush mine for a little while. It doesn't feel quite the same with wild animals, but it's close enough that ah can get used to it."

"Still," Anna remarked, "ah never thought of trying to cook the rabbit. Do they taste good?"

"Folks have eaten rabbits for thousands of years." Logan replied with a shrug, "If they're cooked the right way, they're real nice."

Anna nodded in interest, though she wasn't about to rush back out into the forest and try to find the rabbit again. She was starting to find the whole idea interesting, however. The hunt had felt just as incredible as Logan had said, and she couldn't help but smile when she thought about it. From that point on, she knew, she was going to hunt something every day.

* * *

Illyana took another bite of the hamburger that she'd ordered, still smiling as she talked with her new friends. Their discussion topics were limited to the food, the atmosphere, and their own recent experiences, and even then, nothing too personal was said, but nonetheless, everyone there was having a pretty good time talking. Roberto had been quick to accept Illyana's change of heart, and Sam hadn't been far behind, but after half an hour in that restaurant, even Rahne was starting to loosen up a little, and participate in the conversation.

Of course, it was only a matter of time before the subject of discussion drifted back onto what had just happened; the fight out in the great plains, and Illyana's subsequent attitude improvement. It was something that everyone there was a little curious about, but only Roberto had the guts to ask about it directly.

"So what happened back there?" Roberto asked, still smiling, "Don't tell me you were holding back on me."

"Not really..." Illyana replied, her pleasant smile looking like it was about to slip just a little, "I guess you just trained as hard as I did. That was hard for me to believe at first. I trained under the fear of death."

"Me too." Roberto said, grinning, "Except in my case, I was more afraid of other people dying, and I wanted to be able to protect them."

"I see." Illyana replied, smiling again, "I suppose I have to accept that, then."

Roberto wasn't sure what Illyana was really saying at first, but a few moments later, she spoke again, and she sounded very relieved as she described her feelings.

"Roberto, I've been feeling things like happiness, joy, sadness, sympathy, and love ever since I got back from Limbo. I just didn't want to admit it, or give in to those feeling, because I'd been taught that they opened a person up to weakness. I was told that if I cast aside feelings like that, and faced the world from a clean perspective, focusing only on survival and conquest, I could gain the power to be completely unopposed. In Limbo, that turned out to be the case. I conquered the whole world, and overthrew its former ruler, but after that, I came back here, to the planet I was born on, and when that happened, I couldn't be a daemon anymore. I had to face my own humanity."

"For a while, I kept honoring the values of Limbo, trying my best to remain true to both worlds, and I don't think the feelings I learned in that world will ever really leave me, but honestly, I was starting to find those daemon values to be somewhat self-defeating, and I suspected that the craving for power was the cause of much of the suffering that daemons went through. Still, I didn't want to question the beliefs that they held in Limbo, as long as I thought that what they'd done had made me invincible."

"About three weeks ago, though, Galactus came to Earth. You all fought him for a while alongside the X-men, but then, I challenged him to single combat myself. He beat me completely and totally. He proved to me that I wasn't invincible; that no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't be the invincible cosmic ruler that Belasco had said. In the end, I realized that even when I followed Belasco's philosophy, it hadn't really made me strong enough to be worth it. For the first time, I was on the same level as every other mutant in the world, and now, thanks to you, I realize that I'm really not that different from other mutants at all. Because of that, I feel like I can live my life as a simple mutant girl, without needing to conquer, destroy, or repress my feelings. Thank you, Roberto Da Costa."

"You're welcome." Roberto replied with a smile, as he took another drink of his soda. In just a short time, the conversation had drifted onto other topics again, and Illyana's complicated reasons for the choices she'd made had been almost completely forgotten.

* * *

Logan couldn't help but smile as he passed back through the front doors of the Xavier Institute. His plan had worked perfectly, and he suspected that from that point onward, there wouldn't be any more mysterious fainting spells around Westchester. Anna didn't need to use her mutant powers on people anymore. She was ready to adapt to life among ordinary folks, just like Logan had.

However, there was still something about the whole situation that Logan found a little odd. He remembered the harm that Anna had caused in the past; the people she'd killed, and even though Anna had helped the Avengers in the fight against Galactus, it didn't seem likely that something like that could just be forgotten. Anna's crimes had to be paid for somehow, and Logan suspected that the Avengers would be paying another call on the Xavier Institute again within a week.

Almost as soon as Logan was inside the doors of the Institute, however, he received another telepathic message from Xavier.

"Logan. We need to talk about Anna."

"It's all taken care of, Chuck." Logan replied, but Xavier still sounded worried.

"I'm in a class right now," Xavier explained, "but meet me in my office in fifteen minutes. There's still a problem we need to address."

* * *

Sure enough, Xavier wasn't a single minute late for that meeting, and Logan was waiting for him in his office. By that point, however, Logan was looking very grim, and Xavier could tell that he understood the problem. After all, the evidence had been left out in plain sight. The newspaper was on Xavier's desk, open to the page that he'd wanted to show to Logan.

"I see you've noticed the article." Xavier observed, as Logan stood where he was, looking severe.

"Yeah..." Logan replied with a nod, "I don't get it, though. How could this happen?"

For a moment, Xavier glanced back down at the article again. He could barely believe it himself, but there was an image on that page of Anna Marie Darkholme being taken into custody by the Avengers, and the title of the article was very clear about what the picture meant.

"Mutant girl taken into Avengers' custody to await trial."

The article said, very plainly, that after the battle with Galactus, Anna Marie Darkholme had been imprisoned by the Avengers in a containment cell to await her trial date, and that her day in court was still almost a week away. In the meantime, it said, she would remain securely in the custody of the Avengers, who, as always, would see that justice was done.

The article proved several things. First, it proved why no one from the Avengers had come looking for Anna over the past few weeks. It also proved that somehow, there was more than one Anna Marie Darkholme on planet Earth. Xavier couldn't explain how that had happened, however. It certainly didn't make a great deal of sense, but if the Avengers had Anna in custody, and he also had Anna living at the institute, there was obviously a puzzle that needed to be solved. Which one, Xavier wondered, was the real Anna, and who was the impostor? Why had an impostor taken Anna's form to begin with? There were a lot of questions making up that large puzzle.

"So what do we do about it?" Logan asked, looking dismayed as he leaned forward in his seat.

Xavier was silent for several seconds, but when he finally spoke up, he knew that he had to make another hard decision.

"This is a much more delicate situation than it seems to be, at first." Xavier replied, "Anna Marie is a criminal who has to stand trial for what she's done, but she's also a young girl, who's been betrayed more than once by people she thought she could trust. Even after what you've helped her to accomplish, it would be premature to make any aggressive moves against her. I don't want her to feel like I've betrayed her. The same risk exists if I try to read her thoughts. She's no kind of strong telepath herself, but she's bound to notice any telepathic intrusion, and interpret it as a sign of betrayal. I'd rather be her friend than her enemy, but if she's the real Anna, I'll be forced to hand her over to the Avengers, whether we part on friendly terms or not. However, if the Anna that's been living under my roof all this time is an impostor..."

As he said that, Xavier's voice started to drift off a little, but he continued to speak, though he sounded a bit sad.

"If the Anna in our midst is an impostor, we need even more information. We need to know who the impostor really is, how she acquired powers like Anna's, and what she wants from us. There's a chance she might be friendly, and willing to listen to reason. If so, that's all well and good, but if not... If not, then it might come to a fight again, though I'd prefer not to have to engage Anna, or anything else like her. We'll do what we have to, to see this resolved, but we need more information first. Try to learn what you can without arousing Anna's suspicions. I'll keep my eyes open. In four days, we'll meet back here and discuss what we've found, then re-evaluate the plan if we have to, but in the meantime, I don't want a word of this breathed to the students. Not even by you, Kurt."

Kurt hadn't been anywhere near Xavier's office, but naturally, he'd overheard the conversation all the same. He never liked the idea of keeping a secret from his friends, but when Xavier had given him those instructions, he knew that he had to comply.

"Understood, professor." Kurt thought silently in reply.

* * *

For three and a half days, Xavier, Logan, and Kurt kept their eyes open for some clue to "Anna's" real identity, but their efforts didn't yield much in the way of results. Anna seemed calmer than she'd been before; more subdued and less passionate, as if she'd aged a lifetime in the last month. However, nothing that was discovered proved anything about whether Anna was an impostor or not. She didn't seem quite the same in terms of her personality, but that could have been a natural result of her recent revelations about her mutant powers, and what they really did to the people she touched. Xavier was stumped, but he knew that in one more day, he'd need to involve the X-men in the investigation, or risk letting Anna know what he suspected.

However, just as Charles Xavier was about to go to bed that night, the answer to the very mystery he'd been puzzling over came barging in on him. With a brief squeaking noise, his door flew open, and in came Anna, looking a little worried, but mainly just sad.

"Professor..." Anna said, "Ah'm sorry to barge in, but right now, we don't have much time. Ah have to tell you something important."

Xavier wasn't sure what to think for a moment, but at last, he nodded, giving Anna the chance to say her piece.

"Someone's coming after me..." Anna said, "They're almost here, in fact. Ah have to tell you before they get here... No matter what happens, ah'm glad we had this time together. Ah wanted to thank you for helping me recover when ah was feeling hopeless and miserable."

If the Anna standing in front of him was, in fact, the Anna Marie that Xavier knew, her remarks made perfect sense, but they still didn't solve the mystery of the duplicate Anna that the Avengers had. However, in just a moment, Anna spoke again, and her words, though incredible, explained a great deal.

"Professor, ah know you've suspected something ever since ah came to live with you. You were confused, because ah was here in the mansion, and ah was also in New York, imprisoned by the Avengers. Ah just... Ah couldn't tell you the truth, because ah was scared how y'all would react... For you, it's been a month since we pushed back Galactus. For me, it was more like eighty years."

It was incredible. In fact, it seemed impossible. All the same, though, Xavier had seen so many strange things in his life, that just dismissing Anna's story wouldn't have been fair. He continued to listen as Anna explained.

"Ah don't know much about what happened, but ah'll tell you what ah do know. In about a week, you're going to New York, to be there at mah trial. You're going to make a statement about how, for the sake of fairness to humans of all types, the same laws should apply to me as to anybody else. Because of that statement, the judge is going to sentence me to eighty years in an underground prison maintained by the Avengers."

"It's been a long time since ah've seen real daylight," Anna admitted sadly, "but ah was never lonely, because ah had mah powahs to keep me company. In the end, ah served out mah sentence, and rushed back here, hoping that some of y'all might still be around."

"By the time ah got out of that prison, most of the people ah knew were dead." Anna replied, "Most of the X-men were gone, and so were you. So was everybody. I remembered a few of the Avengers, but ah felt horrible, because ah didn't have the chance to go back to mah life after all that time alone. Eighty years is a long time to wait, Professor. Ah was patient in that prison cell, but ah didn't want to accept the fact that y'all were dead. Ah felt horrible, because I knew ah didn't have the chance to get back the people ah cared about. Having to wait a long time in a cell is one thing, Professor, but finding out that everybody you ever cared about is dead... That was too much. Ah wasn't going to take that lying down."

"Ah found out something about Doctor Doom right about then, though. Ah found out that he'd had a time machine for years. Ah burst into his castle and ah used his machine to come back here, because ah wanted the chance to live those years over again. Ah wanted the chance to settle up with the people in mah life."

"Like ah said, ah'm glad ah had the chance to spend some time with y'all at least, even if ah have to go back to mah own time now. Ah'll miss you, no matter who else ah meet, but ah still feel bettah, having had the chance to see you one last time."

"Wait..." Xavier said, just as it seemed like Anna was about to leave, "If everything that you've told me is true, you've served your time, and you're not a criminal anymore. Who's coming for you?"

"Widow." Anna replied somberly, "She'll have some way to take advantage of mah weaknesses when she gets here, but ah'm not gonna put up a fight. It doesn't matter."

"Widow?" Xavier asked, "She's still alive in the future?"

"It's something about the experiments that created her." Anna replied offhandedly, "She doesn't age like most people do."

"In that case, I'd like to speak with her as well." Xavier replied, "If she's anything like the Widow from my own time, she'll at least be professional about this whole affair."

When Xavier said that, however, a smile started to spread across Anna's face; a smile that looked genuinely happy. Even after eighty years of solitude and grief, Anna was still capable of more pleasant emotions, and she was very pleased to have Professor Charles Xavier at her side in a hard time like that.

* * *

Within ten minutes, both Xavier and Anna were out on the lawn, watching in amazement, and a little worry, as the small, flying stealth craft of Victor Von Doom descended onto the grounds of the Xavier Institute without even a single sound, and without setting off any of the mansion's many security alarms. Xavier found that distressing, and reminded himself to install a few more sensors just in case, as the ship made a complete landing, then opened. At last, out stepped two figures; the thin, red-haired woman known as Widow, and the armor-clad figure that the whole world recognized as Doctor Doom.

"I see we were expected." Doom said, as he approached the two mutants slowly, "Curious."

"Never mind that." Widow replied, "We just need to resolve this issue without giving away any more information about this crisis than we have to."

"Giving away information to whom, exactly?" Xavier asked curiously, "To me? I already know why you're here. Anna's told me everything."

For a moment, Widow's eyes seemed to dart in multiple directions. She glanced at Anna, then stared at Xavier, then looked back to Anna again, and her eyes narrowed in contempt.

"I know you're afraid you'll be taken back to prison for what you've done..." Widow began, but in that instance, she'd read Anna's actions all wrong.

"Why?" Anna asked with a glare of her own, "Is traveling through time against the law? If so, you ought to lock yourself up too."

"It would be shortsighted to completely outlaw time travel." Widow replied, though her glare didn't soften at all as she spoke, "However, what you've done is completely unacceptable. You have no idea how badly you've endangered our whole timeline."

For a moment, Anna wasn't sure what Widow was talking about, but just then, she started to use the brilliant, scientific brain of Hank Pym, and began to grasp some of the danger of that situation. Temporal theory hadn't been his area of expertise, but he'd had it in him to understand the concept, at least.

"You mean this whole time..." Anna muttered in horror, "This is the kind of time travel that can damage causality..."

At once, Anna turned on Doom, and there were sparks of electricity visible in her eyes as she faced him directly, her rage almost palpable.

"You idiot! Why would you leave something like that lying around? Don't you even know how dangerous that kind of technology is?"

"Any kind of technology can be dangerous if it's misused." Doom simply replied calmly, "I kept my time travel device because I knew that I could trust myself to never misuse it's power. Now, I turn that question back on you. Did you have any idea how dangerous my technology was when you insisted on using it for your own selfish ends, or did you just act on your feelings, with no regard for the consequences of those actions?"

Anna looked like she wanted to make another angry outburst, but she couldn't think of anything to say. In the end, she just turned back away from Doom sadly.

"Fortunately, if you come back with me right now, there might not be any significant damage." Widow said, taking just a moment to check some sort of tracking device that she seemed to have brought with her, "You don't know that much about our timeline yourself, so you couldn't have told the Professor anything too sensitive."

"It may be easier to solve this problem than you think." Doom said, an amused tone starting to emerge in his voice as he spared Widow a short glance, "Widow, how much do you know about the superhuman population of the planet Earth as they're going to develop over the next five years?"

"Almost everything." Widow replied, "I could give you a name, description, and history of virtually every mutant and metahuman to surface in the next eighty years, although I obviously can't do that with the professor listening."

When he heard that, Xavier had to fight back the temptation to try to read Widow's thoughts. If she really knew all that she said she did, then she could have given him an incredible advantage in predicting and responding to future challenges, but the way she was reacting to what Anna had done gave Xavier the distinct impression that something about the situation was dangerous. It might, in fact, be hazardous for him to know too much about his own future, even if he'd had no moral objections to reading another person's thoughts without their permission.

"Tell me something..." Doom said, addressing Anna directly again, "Why would you bother coming here? I've known for months that this place was the headquarters of the X-men, but you must have known that fighting them one last time wouldn't accomplish anything. What did you really want from them?"

However, as Doom asked that question, Anna just started to look sadder than ever. A few seconds later, her reply was full of disappointment, and even a little fear.

"Ah guess that when the professor helped me sort things out, ah sort of figured ah owed him a little something. Ah felt like ah never really made things right with him; like ah never got the chance..." Anna said, "Ah knew ah'd made a lot of trouble; for him and for the X-men, and ah guess ah just wanted the chance to make it up to 'em; maybe even get to know 'em a little. These last few weeks have been really great."

Doom started to look just a little concerned, but it seemed obvious that for some reason, he believed Anna.

"There's something we need to decide on before we make any moves." Doom said, "First, the three of us need to talk, then I'll need to speak with Widow alone, but for the moment, Professor Xavier, I'd like to ask you one thing. If Anna were to stay here with you, would you be willing to accept her?"

"I've never treated a fellow human being with prejudice," Xavier replied, "only justice. Anna's presence here these last few weeks hasn't been overly disruptive, and I don't object to it. In fact, I'd say that she's managed to add something to the school that it needed, although things could get complicated if the Avengers find out she's here."

Doom just nodded, then said, in a surprisingly tender voice "Thank you."

Those two words alone shocked Xavier so much, that he couldn't have even said a word to stop the three figures when they stepped into Doom's aircraft, and the door to it closed behind them silently.

* * *

Widow wasn't sure what Doom was planning as the door to his ship closed, and the two found themselves alone with Anna. Doom wasn't from the future, like Widow was, but he knew all about the problem; maybe even better than she did. He knew that if a person from the future caused huge changes to their own past, the timeline would be fractured, and the very survival of the universe might be endangered. As one of the most gifted temporal physicists in the world, he must have had a thorough understanding of the danger that Anna posed, as long as she was around the X-men, and yet, for some reason, Doom didn't look the least bit worried. In fact, he'd even brought up the subject of Anna staying, as if that was a genuine option. Widow was definitely not following Doom's reasoning, in spite of her own well-honed intelligence.

"I just want to ask you a couple of questions, and then I'll need to discuss things with Widow." Doom said to Anna as she stood in the middle of his aircraft, still looking sad, "First I'd like you to tell me everything that you know about the future you come from. Everything. Don't leave anything out. Chances are, I know it all already."

Anna seemed a little nervous at first, so she glanced toward Widow, as if to ask whether it was alright to reveal anything to Doom. Widow, however, had already told Doom even more about the future than Anna knew, so she just gave the mutant girl a nod of consent.

"This is what ah know about the future." Anna admitted reluctantly, "Ah know that Thor is still alive. Ah know that Widow and Miss Marvel are still alive, and so are you. Ah know that you're a member of the Avengers, and that the cities are bigger than they are in this time period. Ah also know that the X-men ah knew are dead, but Xavier's school is still around, and being run by a man named Bishop."

Doom seemed pleased by the answer, but he insisted on asking again, "Are you sure that's all? You don't know anything else about the future?"

"Ah was locked in a lonely room underground for eighty years." Anna replied, "How much could ah know?"

"Alright." Doom replied, "In that case, I just need to speak to Widow alone for a moment."

Quickly, Doom walked through a metal door into the cockpit of the aircraft, and Widow followed him. The moment that both were through the doorway, Doom pushed a small button next to it, causing it to close silently, and completely separating the cockpit from the rest of the aircraft.

"No sound can get out of this cockpit from within right now." Doom said, "We're safe from prying ears. Now, explain something to me in detail, Widow. I want you to give me the names and rough descriptions of all the X-men from your time."

Widow's eyes narrowed for a moment when Doom said that, however.

"What's your game, Doom?" Widow asked suspiciously.

"I'll tell you once you've answered my question." Doom replied, however, still looking stern.

Widow didn't really like that arrangement, but she started listing mutants anyway.

"Bishop is a tall, black man with a beard. He has the power to absorb, expel, and redirect all forms of radiant energy. Driver is a young, white man, with blond hair and large forearms. He has the power to rotate whole sections of his body with superhuman speed, turning himself into a human drill. Phoenix is a white, red-haired woman of average height. She has both telepathic and telekinetic powers on a very large scale. Cannonball is a young-looking, white male with blond hair. He's invulnerable to most kinds of attacks, and has the ability to fly with superhuman speed, as well as generating explosions of destructive energy from his arms and legs. Wolverine is a short, shaggy, dark-haired, white man who likes to keep to himself. He has enhanced senses of smell and hearing, as well as the power to heal rapidly from severe injuries. His bones are unbreakable, and he has razor-sharp claws that emerge from the backs of his hands. Rogue is a young-looking girl with long, mostly brown hair. She has the powers of superhuman strength, speed, and endurance, and can generate electricity within her body. Olympian is..."

"Stop." Doom said, sounding amused, "I've heard enough. Widow, I'm convinced that Anna's presence in this time period is meant to be. You can't take her back to the future."

Widow was starting to look worried when Doom said that, but it wasn't long before she saw what he was trying to say.

"No, Doom." Widow said, "Rogue isn't Anna. Her real name is Alexis Raven. In terms of build, she's a little thicker than Anna around the arms and legs, and her face looks nothing like Anna's."

"Widow," Doom said, sounding a little disappointed by her reply, "all of that can be fabricated. If I want to, I can make an artificial past for her, change her facial features by coaxing her muscles into a new configuration with energy pulses, and give her the chance to alter her own muscle size by taxing her to whatever limits she might have. I'm convinced that Anna Marie Darkholme is Rogue."

"It's too dangerous." Widow objected, "It's too much of a risk. If you don't have any proof that the two of them are the same person..."

"Have you ever seen childhood pictures, or videos of Alexis Raven?" Doom asked, "Can you confirm anything about her past before she joined the X-men?"

Widow shook her head, however, as she continued to glare at Doom.

"That's not enough." she replied, "It's not proof."

"There's no such thing as absolute proof," Doom said in exasperation, "but fine. Have it your way. There's one more way to be sure."

In a moment, Doom had typed a few commands into his aircraft computer, and seven images had appeared along the monitor screen.

"When did Rogue first join the X-men?" Doom asked.

"It wasn't until several months after Galactus left Earth..." Widow said, "Although Alexis had been a student at the Xavier institute since almost a month after the incident."

"Well, these are all the people in the world named Alexis Raven." Doom said, gesturing to the images on the computer display, "Do any of them look familiar to you?"

Widow had been skeptical of the idea at first, but as she looked at those pictures, none of them looking even remotely like Rogue, she knew that she had to accept the truth of the situation. In fact, it was starting to appall her that she hadn't drawn that conclusion before then. After spending several seconds in thought, Widow finally gave in.

"Alright. So what's your plan, Doom?"

"I'm going to use my technology to alter Anna's features, until she begins to resemble Rogue by encouraging, discouraging, and shifting her muscles with a machine that I invented to help people with badly disfigured features. Unfortunately, it doesn't smooth out burned skin, or heal scars, or else I could use it on myself, but it should work for our purposes. I'll alter her appearance until she looks exactly like Rogue."

"How will you know when she looks enough like Rogue?" Widow asked.

"I won't, but you will." Doom explained, "You'll give me instructions during the whole process and let me know when I've got it right. After that, I'll fabricate a fake lineage for her, and with a little care, no one's going to question it. She'll be ready to return to the Institute by the end of the week."

For a few more moments, neither said a word, but at last, with a brief chuckle, Doom asked, "You're not worried she'll tell them anything sensitive, are you?"

"How could she?" Widow replied, still scowling, "She doesn't know anything. I just wish I could have predicted how things would turn out. This whole affair could have gone disastrously if I hadn't taken you into my confidence. I'm still not sure I understand what happened here today."

"You just can't get used to nonlinear thinking, can you?" Doom asked, sounding amused.

"No," Widow replied, "and once I return to my own time period, I hope I never see another time travel device in my life."

Doom seemed to mostly find the whole situation funny, however, as he opened a nearby compartment in one of the cockpit walls, drawing a small machine out of it; shaped roughly like a cereal bowl with sliding rods threaded through it.

* * *

Perry frowned as he looked across the site at the recent readings that the geological surveys had uncovered. They were ready to start laying the foundation. Quickly, he signaled to several people nearby, and waited for them to set up the marking posts, which would show where the concrete was going to go. For the moment, there was only one more thing that had to be done.

Ordinarily, once the basement and support holes were dug, machinery would have to be set up, to lower the cast plates down there, so that the concrete could be properly applied. Because of the size and weight of the casts, much less the concrete itself, the whole thing usually needed to be done by machines, but Perry had been saving money on that stage of the process recently, because he had something that no other construction crew had. He had Fredrick J. Dukes.

Fred was one of the biggest, strongest-looking guys that Perry had ever met, and he was a whole lot stronger than he looked. Quickly, he descended into the well-outlined hole in the ground, and stood in the middle of the place where the building's foundation would go, absolutely fearless, as he waited for Perry to give him the cast plates.

Each of the cast plates was several yards wide, and weighed about as much as a small car, but when the crane dropped them into the hole, Dukes caught them with ease in his bare hands. In just a few moments, he'd fitted them in, just the way that Perry had instructed him to, and waited there, while the plates were measured, to be sure that they were in the right distance from the edges. At last, the mixers approached, and the cement started to pour into the casts, around the metal supports along that edge, until it formed a solid framework around the building.

The whole time, Dukes stayed in the center of the building's foundation, watching as the cement settled into the casts on all sides. When it was done settling, Dukes would remove the casts too. That was another job that typically took a long time, but for him, it was the work of a few seconds.

The casts were very heavy, but even after being used to shape cement, they were still extremely sturdy as well. Once the cement had hardened all the way, Dukes yanked the casts free, then shoved three of them upwards, onto the ground above the pit in the middle of the site. At last, just as he'd done a number of times before, Dukes made a few marks on the recently-hardened cement with a ruler and a marker, then climbed the ramp back to ground level, where he pulled the final cast up behind him. The whole process might have taken a team of men days to finish, but thanks to Fred Dukes, it was done in an hour.

* * *

As the mixers dumped in one last coating of cement on the level of the markings that Dukes had made, however, he thought he saw something out of the corner of his eye. It had looked like some kind of glowing, sparkling thing floating in the air, though he hadn't been sure he'd really seen it, at first. It was enough to get his attention, however, and he spent a few moments looking around, as a result. That was when he saw her.

There was a woman standing on a nearby street corner. She had powerful-looking arms and legs, and she was dressed mainly in dark green pants, with a green and yellow shirt. However, Dukes recognized the light brown hair with the stripe of white through it at once. For him, there was no mistaking an obvious sign like that.

Fred allowed himself only a moment to accept the congratulations of his site foreman on another job well done, before he excused himself.

"Something come up?" Perry had asked him, but Dukes just shook his head.

"I'll only be a minute. I gotta make a call."

Perry just nodded with a smile, as Fred headed off towards the other side of the street, across from the construction site, where the woman was clearly waiting for him, but as he got closer to her, he realized with some disappointment that the face of the young lady wasn't Anna's face at all.

"Sorry..." Fred muttered, when he was only about a yard from the woman, "I thought you were somebody else."

"It's me, Fred." Anna said with a slight chuckle. Her voice sounded a little higher than he remembered, but her accent was still the same. "Don't run off yet. We haven't seen each other in a long time."

For a few moments, Fred couldn't believe it. Anna's facial features looked totally different, and her voice and muscle structure were all wrong, but her hair was the same, and when he looked into her eyes, he caught a brief glimpse of the same spark of lightning inside of them. There was no doubt that it was really her, although for some reason, she'd gone to a lot of trouble to change her appearance.

"Anna?" Fred asked in amazement.

"Shh..." Anna replied, holding out both hands to silence him for a moment, "It's Alexis now, but if you want, you can call me Lexy instead. A lot's happened since we talked last."

"I don't get it, Ann...Lexy." Fred said, not sure what Anna wanted, but willing to play along all the same, "Why'd you run off? Why'd you change the way you look? Where've you been?"

"Remember the trial a couple days ago?" Anna asked, receiving a nod from Fred in return, "Well, ah've served mah time, and ah'm back to live mah life right."

Fred Dukes didn't understand how that could possibly be, but in times like that, he usually decided that he'd be better off just accepting Anna's word.

"What's the scheme this time?" Fred asked, but Anna just shook her head.

"The truth is, Fred, ah... Ah had a lot of time to think about the way ah lived mah life, and... There's lots of things ah feel bad about. Ah feel kinda bad about how ah fought the X-men so many times, ah feel real bad about the people ah killed, but the one thing ah never felt bad about was the friendship we had. Ah wanted to let you know about that..."

Fred still didn't understand all of what Anna was going through, so he just nodded again.

"Ah never got through high school." Anna admitted at last, as she looked up and down the street, "Ah never had the chance to have normal teenage years. Now ah've got that chance, and ah think... Ah think ah'm going to the Xavier Institute. If you want, you can come with me. Ah bet they'd let you in too. Then we could still be friends, and go to the same school together."

However, Fred didn't even have to think about that. He was shaking his head sadly in no time, looking a little torn, but determined.

"A-Lexy, I've been to schools before, but school never worked for me. I didn't like any of the other kids, they didn't like me, and I was never all that good at the work. If you've really gotta go to a school, I can't follow you there. I'm sorry. Besides, I've got a nice job here. It's not fun, but it's what I'm good at, and it pays the bills. We can still be friends if you want, but you'll have to see me someplace that isn't school."

Anna looked crestfallen when she heard him say that, but in just a moment, she replied, saying "If you really can't come back to school with me, ah guess that's how it has to be, because ah can't just give up on the friendship we have. Even if we really have to take two different paths in our lives, ah still want to me your friend."

"Yeah." Fred said, holding out his hand to her to shake, "Me too."

Anna's hands were covered by ordinary, brown work gloves, so she knew that her powers wouldn't hurt Fred a moment later, when she shook his hand. Finally, both of them were growing up, and they were ready to carry their friendship into their lives as mature adults. To each, it was obvious that the future was going to be an even better time, and each for their own reasons, as Fred hurried back to the work site, and Anna took off into the air, flying back towards Westchester.

* * *

End.

* * *

Well, I guess that's it. I'd love to be able to do more stories about Marvel's mutant population, though I just don't have enough time. Still, I did come up with more ideas, just to rub a few extra things in Marvel's face before I go.

Before we get into that, though, you might want to read the last few chapters of "Tales from the Marvel Universe Neo," without which these last issues of X-Men Neo would be extremely confusing. They explain plenty more about Thor, Galactus, Doom, Anna, and the Avengers; a story that's only partially told here. If you've read both, then I don't feel bad about explaining where I'd go from here, if I had the chance to continue.

The next issue of X-men would have revolved around a celebration, after the Avengers helped them regain full control of their school. In that issue, the various characters would discuss how things had gone for them over time, and their developing outlooks, all the while having fun and joking around. At the very end of the issue, just as the party is finishing up, Xavier would notice a disturbance in the American southwest, where a mutant boy would be under attack by tank-like machines.

In the following issue, Scott, Jean, Ororo, and Piotr would arrive at the scene of the battle, only to find that the tank-machines were nowhere to be found. They find only mechanical parts, strewn along the ground, and the mutant boy, who, it seems, was responsible. At that point, the X-men have two mysteries to solve. Who built the robots, and who's the mutant boy that defeated them so easily?

The trail leads them to discover the "sentinel program;" a large-budget, military operation, founded by some powerful business tycoons, with the goal of designing weapons that could be useful against mutant powers. The result; an artificially-intelligent form of mobile tank, which can plan and reason, and is armed with all manner of weapons.

Ultimately, the X-men defeat a large number of sentinels, costing the project a fortune, and forcing one of their financiers; Vincent Edison, to question whether the project even had a chance of succeeding from the start.

"You think so highly of your technology and your weapons," Edison would say, "but no matter how intelligent you are, or what you can build, it seems that mutants are just better. I'm pulling out of the project."

In the meantime, however, the members of the Hellfire club are just as eager to learn about, and to acquire the help of the mutant boy as the X-men are, and they seem to understand a lot more about him. After a lot of investigating, it's discovered that the mutant boy; whose name is Jonathan Silvercloud, has a very special kind of mutant ability; the power to build any kind of machine that he can imagine.

As soon as Professor Xavier realizes this, it becomes obvious that Silvercloud may very well be the most powerful mutant who's ever lived, and a struggle ensues to keep him out of the hands of the Hellfire Club, punctuated by laughable attempts on the part of the remaining sentinels to bring even one of the battling mutants in. In the end, Silvercloud agrees to start attending the Institute, and the Hellfire Club is routed.

The following issue would be about Anna almost exclusively, centering around her doubts and fears about herself, and her quest to discover the identity of her remaining stalker. She would go in search of the person responsible for attacking her in her bedroom, possibly accompanied by a couple of X-men, but not many, since they would still be hesitant to trust her. This would lead to the eventual discovery of Vincent Edison's true nature as an ancient vampire, and a battle between them would ensue. In the end, Edison would be driven off again, vowing to return for the power he craves.

The next issue would open up with Lilandra Neramani, flying alone in a small, Shi'ar starcraft, and shaking off pursuers as she looked for a planetside location to conceal herself. The closest star system to her position is the Solar System, and when she asks her computer for information about its various planets, it reveals that there is a habitable planet nearby, which is occupied by a species of intelligent life-forms; a species that, according to long-range scans, recently routed the cosmic entity known as Galactus.

This news brings a feeling of hope to Lilandra's heart, and she descends to Earth, living there in solitude for almost a week, until the Shi'ar patrols move out of sensor range, and stop looking for her again.

At that point, Lilandra approaches the world leaders, and tells them that a terrible disaster is about to occur, and that if they don't take immediate action, the whole galaxy could be destroyed. The world leaders, however, seem fairly well united in not believing Lilandra's words, when they learn that she's a criminal in exile from her people.

The Avengers admit to being torn over whether to assist her or not. Some have no intention of leaving their homeworld, while others feel it wouldn't be right to interfere in the affairs of someone else's planet. The ones who do believe her, grasp the danger, and want to help are eventually outvoted, but there is one person who realizes from the start that Lilandra is telling the truth; Professor Xavier.

With some help from Silvercloud, Lilandra's ship is expanded on and re-armed, and after a short time, the X-men agree to help her save the galaxy. This would lead to the M'Kraan Crystal saga, and represent the X-men's first major journey into deep space, which Xavier would later claim was a "vacation trip" in the school records.

My original plan was to chain this directly into a version of the Pheonix Saga similar to the one seen in the Fox animated series, except with better-outlined motives for the Pheonix, and for Jean Grey. It would also be a chance to reveal new sides of the characters of Jean, Xavier, Logan, and especially Scott. The whole time, I could realistically involve Sinister in anything dealing with Jean Grey's fate, introduce Apocalypse whenever I felt like it, and involve Magneto whenever something really important is at stake, since he basically wants things to turn out right; he's just learned to justify too many horrors.

Who knows? Maybe someday, someone will take it upon themselves to write these stories out. If they do, I hope they'll remember the spirit with which I wrote them, and leave out the same things that I tend to leave out.

As I've read X-men over the years, there were a lot of things I loved, and a lot of things I hated. To make the X-men enjoyable again, I just had to steer clear of the things about the X-men which, to me, just didn't work.

First, is the notion of metal walking upright. No way. If you know how science works, you know that no metallic device can walk on two legs; at least not if it's made from any kind of metal I ever heard of. Metal is just too heavy. It isn't resilient enough to support and shift that much weight without some kind of human body to use as a backbone. Therefore, my sentinels do not look humanoid. They look like real robots do.

Secondly, my sentinels are very ineffective, not because they lack firepower, but because the people controlling them aren't smart enough to take advantage of the sentinels' great intelligence. No sentinel would ever succeed in capturing, imprisoning, or killing a mutant in the Marvel Universe Neo. Aside from making sense (mutants being _more_ advanced than humans, I mean,) it maintains a sort of balance in the story world. I mean, if humans could use sentinels to defend themselves from evil mutants, why would the X-men even exist? Ultimately, the way that sentinels were used in later comics just didn't make sense to me, though it still didn't seem right to leave them out completely.

Third, prejudice against mutants is rare; very rare. In fact, it's only slightly less rare than prejudice against other kinds of superhumans. One phrase that I heard repeated a lot through the Claremont days in X-men comics was that "for every person who gives in to hate and fear, there are hundreds who will be willing to hear the truth." That, unfortunately, was before the nineties, when they apparently decided it was more fun to give every single human being a pathological hatred of mutants. I have followed the above quote to the letter. A few people like having mutants around; some are amazed and impressed by their powers, while others recognize the advantage they have in the world, and want to get on their good side. Most people, though, are fairly indifferent to mutants; just viewing them as normal people. Prejudice against mutants is only found in one person out of a thousand or so, and most of the time, it isn't even all that strong.

Most instances of prejudice against mutants are at their strongest, like all human vices, in our leaders and representatives within the government; hence my lack of hesitation over bringing in Senator Kelly; a character I've always found annoying because of his one-dimensional, hatred-driven character type.

By contrast, my Senator Kelly was a respectable man of the people, who'd become powerful and influential, and had gradually decided that people needed a defense from mutants; a defense that had to be specifically designed to combat mutant powers. He's driven by some degree of prejudice in his crusade to keep mankind in control of everything, but even he has some misgivings about the path he's chosen. He isn't blindly anti-mutant, nor did he get into office on anything as contrived as an "anti-mutant platform."

All the other changes I've made to the X-men are centered around a plain and simple desire to see them as the center-point of their own comic. The X-men are important; they're needed to protect humans from evil mutants, but more than that, most people are glad to have their help, just like in the very first issue of X-men.

The modern comics seem to delight in hurting the X-men for no reason, and assaulting them and their cause in every way; proving Magneto right by continuously turning any peaceful endeavors on their part into catastrophic failures, often with the death or power loss of a major character, just to boost sales, or even several major characters. I wouldn't do things that way. Comic book stories only give people hope if we look at them from the viewpoint that things will one day improve, and we all need hope. There was a time when that was what comic books were all about.

So that's the backbone of the things I've written about the X-men; they're needed, they're wanted, they're helpful, they're making a difference, they're sticking together, and they have a darn good reason to feel hopeful.

I can't think of a better way to end a story like this.

Excelsior, true believers.

-Bra1n1ac-


End file.
